Los Alamos is building a "breath profile" to detect disease non-invasively

https://www.lanl.gov/media/publications/1663/1224-just-breathe

by LAsteNERD • 11 months ago

4 3 11 months ago

LAsteNERD• 11 months ago

LANL researchers are cataloguing the molecules in healthy human breath to create a baseline profile that could enable new non-invasive diagnostics.

Some details:

Method: Using tandem mass spectrometry, the team has identified 227 distinct compounds across 31 volunteers, narrowing to 48 common features that may define “healthy breath.”

Patterns: Certain metabolites correlated with sex and time of day; others trace back to environmental contaminants or microbiome interactions.

Partnerships: Collaborating with the University of New Mexico to expand sampling (including both breath and blood data).

Goal: Easy-to-use diagnostic tests where a patient might one day “just breathe” to screen for illness, fatigue, or impairment.

The approach echoes the original breathalyzer’s leap in the 1950s but applies it to a far wider range of health conditions.

LosAlamosNerd• 11 months ago

Really interesting idea. But breathomics seems tricky — breath signatures can shift with diet, time of day, stress, exercise, even the room you’re in. How do you think a stable baseline could be built across people (or even within one person) without very tight controls? Could this avoid the pitfalls that stalled other non-invasive diagnostics like urine or saliva tests?

sci-designer• 11 months ago

How soon do we think doctors will have access to commercial tech? Non-invasive diagnostic testing is super exciting!

Los Alamos is building a "breath profile" to detect disease non-invasively

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