Breath Testing for Diabetes

Current medical technology has given us CT scans, MRI’s, PET scans, EEG’s, EKG’s and we seem to be getting ever so close to the Tricorder era of Star Trek.

A research group out of California is now looking at using analyses of elevated methyl nitrate content in exhaled gas as a means to monitor blood sugar in patients with diabetes. This would save them from the repeated and dreaded finger sticks.

Breath analysis is showing promise as a diagnostic tool in a number of clinical areas, such as with ulcers and cystic fibrosis but as of now, no clinical breath test exists for diabetes.

Studies are currently underway and of all the gases analyzed, the kinetic profile of exhaled methyl nitrate most strongly statistically correlated with that of plasma glucose (P = .003 – .001) in 16 of 18 experiments.

This study group is currently involved with new studies looking at the correlation of other gases with hyperglycemia and other variables including insulin and will eventually put together a full exhaled gas profile of diabetes and maybe find an easier way to monitor.