New breath test may help determine patient's risk for diabetes

NEW YORK A simple breath test may help determine whether somebody has the risk of developing diabetes, according to a study published in the March issue of the journal Diabetes Care.

Researchers at the University of Texas and BioChemAnalysis Corp. in Chicago conducted a study to determine whether there was a difference in the breath of people with pre-diabetes and early-stage diabetes versus those with normal glucose levels, giving subjects glucose and measured their breath afterward and every 30 minutes for 10 hours using a breath analyzer.

They found that those with pre-diabetes and early-stage diabetes had lower glucose-derived breath carbon dioxide than those with normal blood glucose levels from one to 3.5 hours after receiving the glucose.

Physicians usually diagnose pre-diabetes using an oral glucose tolerance test, which requires blood sampling.