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Diagnostic Breath Testing
Diagnostic Breath Testing is a simple, non-invasive way to investigate symptoms like bloating, pain, or changes in bowel habits and helping to identify conditions such as food intolerances or bacterial overgrowth in the gut.
How does breath testing work?
Common gut symptoms such as nausea, bloating, pain and flatulence can be the result of gas production in your gut.
This can be due to intolerance to certain sugars that can be hard for some people to digest. It can also be due to small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) in which anaerobic bacteria convert glucose to gas.
Breath testing is a quick, easy and non-invasive way of testing how much of the gases hydrogen and methane are produced in your gut as specific sugars are broken down.
What is involved in breath testing?
Breath testing measures the level of hydrogen and methane on your breath that are produced when specific sugars are broken down in your gut.
Testing occurs across several days, usually 2-4 days. These days can be spread across several weeks.
The Examination
Breath tests are conducted in a consulting room at Intus.
Your specialist or dietitian will advise you if this test might help guide your personalised treatment regime.
Step 1
You will be asked to breath into a mouthpiece to provide a baseline reading.
Step 2
You will then be given a quantity of sugar solution (lactose, glucose, fructose or lactulose) to drink.
Step 3
You will be asked to give further breath samples at 15-30 minute intervals after drinking the solution over a period of up to 3 hours. You will need to stay at Intus throughout the test period.
Once the testing is complete you can go home. You will receive a copy of your results.
Find A Specialist
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Dr Thomas Caspritz
Gastroenterologist
