Correlations of breath acetone with blood glucose and blood beta-hydroxybutyrate using type 1 diabetic rat model

Objective The breath acetone is a potential biomarker for diabetic diagnosis, because some of type 2 and type 1 diabetic (T1D) patients frequently experience ketosis. This paper aims to study the correlations of breath acetone with blood glucose(BG) and blood beta-hydroxybutyrate(BHB) using T1D rat model. Methods Breath acetone values from the 20 T1D and 18 healthy rats were determined using a cavity ringdown spectroscopy based breath analyzer. Simultaneous BG and blood BHB levels were also measured. Results The results showed that breath acetone, BG, and blood BHB in the T1D rat group all have significant difference with that in the healthy rat group (P<0.05). A significant positive relationship between breath acetone and blood BHB was found to exist in both the T1D and healthy rats, and a significant negative relationship between breath acetone and BG was found in the T1D rats. However, the relationship between breath acetone and BG shifts from negative to weakly positive when T1D rats were treated by insulin. No correlation between breath acetone and BG was found in the healthy rats. The multiple linear regression analysis revealed that breath acetone had the predictive nature for blood BHB in T1D rats, and the predictable ability of the model was verified by testing the breath acetone and simultaneous blood BHB from additional 10 healthy rats and 10 T1D rats. Conclusions The findings of this study suggest the usage of rat model is feasible and may help address the question of quantitative correlations in human breath analysis. Key words: Breath analysis; Cavity ringdown spectroscopy; Diabetic rat model; Breath acetone; Blood glucose; Beta-hydroxybutyrate