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Saturday, December 27, 2008

Blood Glucose Levels, Checking With Diabetic Breath Analysis?

Blood glucose levels, there may be a better and more non-invasive way of monitoring this aspect of diabetes management. This is according to an Irvine study in the University of California. The chemists and pediatricians examined this issue by employing a method of chemical analysis used to test air pollution.

They reported that the type 1 diabetic children when they exhibited hyperglycemia, exhaled considerably increased concentrations of methyl nitrates. This is important news in the sense that it may lead to a breath device that can detect high blood glucose levels.

This will let them know if the diabetics need insulin. This is in contrast to the device now presently in use that breaks the skin. Dr. Pietro Galassetti, a UIC Irvine General Clinical Research Center diabetes researcher, said breath analysis has revealed that it could become a diagnostic tool for other conditions like cystic fibrosis and ulcers but has not investigated this for diabetes until now.

Galassetti, along with Dr. Dan Cooper and Andria Pontello investigated the breath-analysis on type 1 diabetic children. They took air samples while the subjects were on hyperglycemic state and progressively while increasing their subjects' blood insulin levels.

F. Sherwood Rowland and Donald Blake, chemists at the UC laboratory of UC Irvine examined the breath samples and found high concentration of methyl nitrates up to ten times more when the subjects were hyperglycemic compared when it was shown they had normal readings.

The concentration matched the subjects' blood glucose levels in the sense that the higher they went so did the concentration of methyl nitrates go up. Dr. Pietro Galassetti said that there are more fatty acids in the blood of type 1 diabetics during hyperglycemia.

This causes oxidative stress and methyl nitrates maybe its by-product. I hope there will be more news on their progress because I know they are involved in more studies hoping they will have more report on the use of breath analysis to monitor blood glucose levels.

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