Measuring fecal pH may sound simple, but in reality, it’s a tricky microbiome marker to test for.
The environment inside your gut is delicate, complex, and surprisingly sensitive to everyday choices like what you eat. One key factor that shapes this environment is pH—the measure of how acidic or alkaline things are.
Researchers have often measured fecal pH—the pH of stool—as a window into the gut microbiome and gut health. Why? Because it reflects the activity of your gut microbes and how they break down the food you eat. Different diets can shift this pH, influencing which microbes thrive. For this reason, fecal pH has become a common measurement in microbiome research.
Why Measuring Fecal pH is Harder Than It Looks
At first glance, measuring pH might sound straightforward. After all, people measure urine pH at home with a simple test strip. But stool is different—it’s solid, complex, and still alive with microbial activity after it leaves the body. That makes measuring fecal pH far from simple.
There are two main challenges:
1. The specimen changes quickly. Once stool is passed, microbes continue to ferment carbohydrates and proteins, altering the pH. If the sample sits at room temperature, the reading won’t reflect what was happening inside your gut. To get accurate data, researchers require participants to collect samples at home and then refrigerate or freeze them until they can be shipped—still cold—to a lab.
2. The measurement itself requires sample preparation. Unlike a liquid, stool can’t just be dipped with a test strip. Standard lab practice involves preparing the sample into a carefully defined suspension. As an alternative, the sample can be measured directly in its semi-solid form, but this measurement requires a specialized electrode probe. This equipment is expensive (often thousands of dollars) and delicate, requiring expert handling and calibration.
Because of these hurdles,fecal pH measurement has long been confined to research laboratories—not something most people could ever access.
From Lab to Home: A New Solution
That’s where innovation comes in. Scientists at Coprata set out to solve this problem. Their team developed the Microbiome Activity Tracker (MAT) kit, a first-of-its-kind rapid home test that makes it possible to measure fecal pH accurately, without the need for specialized lab equipment.
The specimen is measured at home, with no storage and no shipment required. The specimen is prepared with steps similar to an over-the-counter COVID test. When the test is complete, one can scan its QR code and Coprata’s software calculates the result.
By making complex science simple, the MAT kit empowers you to see how your daily choices truly shape your inner health.
Sources
Bile acids and pH values in total feces and in fecal water from habitually omnivorous and vegetarian subjects. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. (1993). https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/58.6.917
Gut physiology and environment explain variations in human gut microbiome composition and metabolism. Nature Microbiology. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-024-01856-x
Diet, microbiome, and inflammation predictors of fecal and plasma short-chain fatty acids in humans. The Journal of Nutrition. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjnut.2024.08.012
