A Negative Correlation Between Blood Glucose and Acetone Measured in Healthy and Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus Patient Breath

Abstract

Background: Exhaled acetone analysis has long been recognized as a supplementary tool for diagnosis and monitoring diabetes, especially type 1 diabetes. It is essential, therefore to determine the relationship between exhaled acetone concentration and glucose in blood. Usually, a direct linear correlation between this both compounds has been expected. However, in some cases we can observe a reverse correlation. When blood glucose was increasing, breath acetone declined.

Methods: The breath analysis as a supplementary tool for diagnosing and monitoring diabetes makes sense only in case of utilization of portable analyzers. This need has created a market for gas sensors. However, commercially available acetone gas sensors are developed for measuring samples at several tens part per million. The exhaled acetone concentration was measured using commercial acetone gas sensor (TGS 822, 823 Figaro, Arlington Heights, IL, USA Inc) with micropreconcentrator in low temperature cofired ceramics. The reference analyzer-mass spectrometry (HPR-20 QIC, Hiden Analytical, Warrington, UK) was used.

Results: Twenty-two healthy volunteers with no history of any respiratory disease participated in the research, as did 31 patients diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Respectively, 3 healthy volunteer and 5 type 1 diabetes mellitus subjects with reverse trend were selected. The linear fitting coefficient various from 0.1139 to 0.9573. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the correlation between blood glucose concentrations and under different conditions, for example, insulin levels, as well as correlate the results with clinical tests, for example, Hb1Ac.

Conclusions: It is well known that the concentration of acetone is strongly influenced by diet, insulin treatment, and so on. Therefore, much more complex analysis with long-term measurements are required. Thus, presented results should be regarded as tentative, and validation studies with the analysis of clinical test and in a large number of patients, including control groups, need to be carried out.

Keywords: acetone sensor; breath acetone detection; micropreconcentrator; type 1 diabetes mellitus patient.

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

© 2015 Diabetes Technology Society.

Figures

Figure 1.

A schematic view of the measurement system based on micropreconcentrator in LTCC technology with gas sensor array based on Figaro sensors.

Figure 2.

Breath acetone concentrations for healthy volunteers characterized with reverse trend before and after consumption of 75 g of glucose with 15-min interval.

Figure 3.

Relations between breath acetone concentration and blood glucose for HV subjects with reverse trend.

Figure 4.

Relations between breath acetone concentration and blood glucose for T1DM subjects with reverse trend.