Breath analysis sensor could simplify diabetes monitoring

Their findings were published in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS).

Even before blood tests are administered, those with diabetes often recognize the condition’s symptoms through their breath acetone—a characteristic ‘fruity’ odour that increases significantly with high glucose levels. The Pitt team was interested in this biomarker as a possible diagnostic tool.

‘Once patients are diagnosed with diabetes, they have to monitor their condition for the rest of their lives,’ said Alexander Star, principal investigator of the project and Pitt associate professor of chemistry. ‘Current monitoring devices are mostly based on blood glucose analysis, so the development of alternative devices that are non-invasive, inexpensive, and provide easy-to-use breath analysis could completely change the paradigm of self-monitoring diabetes.’

Together with his colleagues—Dan Sorescu, a research physicist at the National Energy Technology Laboratory, and Mengning Ding, a Pitt graduate student studying chemistry—Star used a so-called ‘sol-gel approach,’ a method for using small molecules to produce solid materials.