EVAL OF THE SORBITOL BREATH TEST TO DX SM INTESTINE BACT OVERGROWTH

本子项目是利用由NIH/NCRR资助的中心赠款提供的资源的众多研究子项目之一。子项目和研究者（PI）可能已经从另一个NIH来源获得了主要资金，因此可以在其他CRISP条目中表示。列出的机构是中心的，不一定是研究者的机构。细菌过度生长是一种主要发生在老年人身上的疾病，估计有33%的65岁以上的人受到影响。如果不及时治疗，它会引起极大的不适和临床上重要的营养缺乏。其根本原因是与衰老有关的胃酸分泌减少。由于不存在低成本和易于诊断的检测方法，对过度生长的管理受到阻碍。检测是有意义的，因为尽管这种疾病永远无法治愈，但可以通过治疗有效地控制它。我们的目标是开发一种易于使用且具有成本效益的检测方法来检测细菌过度生长。临床应用是能够像金标准（空肠培养）一样准确地检测出表现出典型疾病症状但通常不会接受侵入性和昂贵的空肠培养的患者的细菌过度生长。该测试将准确地检测治疗前和治疗后的状况，并导致生活质量的改善。这项提议的新颖之处在于使用一种无创呼吸测试，使用一种标记有碳-13的天然糖作为探针。如果存在过度生长，小肠中的细菌会代谢标记的底物，高浓度的13CO2会在呼吸中消失。

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Bacterial overgrowth is a condition found primarily in the elderly and is estimated to affect 33% of people over 65 years. It causes great discomfort and clinically important nutritional deficiencies if left untreated. The underlying cause is reduced gastric acid secretion associated with aging. Management of overgrowth is hampered because low cost and easy to diagnose tests do not exist. Detection is meaningful because while the condition is never cured, it can be effectively controlled through treatment. Our objective is to develop an easy to use and cost effective test to detect bacterial overgrowth. The clinical utility is the ability to detect the bacterial overgrowth as accurately as the gold standard (jejunal cultures) in patients exhibiting classic disease symptoms but who ordinarily would not receive the invasive and expensive jejunal culture. The test will accurately detect the condition pre- and post-therapy and lead to quality of life improvement. The novelty of this proposal is the use of a non-invasive breath test employing a naturally occurring sugar labeled with carbon-13 as a probe. If overgrowth is present, the bacteria in the small intestine metabolize the labeled substrate and high concentrations of 13CO2 are expired in the breath.