Over one billion people worldwide are affected by gastrointestinal illness, and in the US alone this results in $21 billion of direct and indirect costs each year.

The symptoms of these conditions can be debilitating, with significant impacts on quality of life. Key conditions include small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), food intolerances such as carbohydrate malabsorption, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

Despite the range of underlying mechanisms that can cause gastrointestinal disease, the symptoms experienced largely overlap, making diagnosis challenging. There is a significant unmet need in the clinic for better, non-invasive tests to better distinguish between GI diseases and tests that allow for monitoring overtime to establish treatment success, particularly for complex conditions such as IBS. Exhaled breath contains a vast array of chemicals that can originate from the gastrointestinal tract: from underlying metabolism, inflammation, and the microbiome.

Through our patient-centric brand OMED Health, and in partnership with Functional Gut Diagnostics, we currently provide hydrogen and methane breath tests that aid clinicians in the diagnosis and treatment of SIBO, lactose intolerance, and fructose intolerance breath tests. These microbiome test kits are suitable for at-home collection of breath, so can support de-centralized clinical trial designs including the collection of breath composition data throughout time.