title: Is exhaled carbon monoxide level associated with blood glucose level? A comparison of two breath analyzing methods.
abstract: The level of exhaled carbon monoxide (eCO) is considered a marker of oxidative stress in diabetes. Previous findings indicated that eCO levels correlated with blood glucose level. The aim of this work was to apply and compare two independent analyzing methods for eCO after oral glucose administration. Glycemia, eCO, and exhaled hydrogen were measured before and after oral administration of glucose. Six healthy nonsmoking volunteers participated. For eCO analysis, we used two methods: a commercially available electrochemical sensor, and a high-precision laser spectrometer developed in our laboratory. The precision of laser-spectroscopic eCO measurements was two orders of magnitude better than the precision of the electrochemical eCO measurement. eCO levels measured by laser spectrometry after glucose administration showed a decrease of 4.1%+/-1.5% compared to the baseline (p<0.05). Changes in the eCO measured by the electrochemical sensor were not significant (p=0.08). Exhaled hydrogen levels increased by 40% within the first 10 min after glucose administration (p<0.05). The previous finding that the glycemia increase after glucose administration was associated with a significant increase in eCO concentrations was not confirmed. We propose that previous eCO measurements with electrochemical sensors may have been affected by cross sensitivity to hydrogen.
authors.affiliation: Universitat Dusseldorf, Institut fur Lasermedizin, Universitatsstrasse 1, 40225 Dusseldorf, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fritsch
authors.forename: Maarten
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: van Herpen
authors.forename: Golo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: von Basum
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hering
authors.forename: Manfred
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mürtz
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001786:Blood Glucose / Q000032:analysis*; D001944:Breath Tests / Q000379:methods*; D002245:Carbon Dioxide / Q000032:analysis*; D004563:Electrochemistry / Q000379:methods*; D045853:Exhalation / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007834:Lasers; D008297:Male; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013057:Spectrum Analysis / Q000379:methods*; D013223:Statistics as Topic
chemical_list: D001786:Blood Glucose; D002245:Carbon Dioxide