Waiting to exhale
Scientists sift the chemical potpourri that escapes our lungs for new ways to diagnose disease
By Laura Beil
The 800 or so breaths you release each hour contain more than just spent air. Along with familiar gases like carbon dioxide, nitrogen and oxygen, each breath holds a vaporized record of the foods you’ve eaten, the places you’ve been, the drugs you’ve taken, the pollutants you’ve encountered and the general operation of your internal organs. It’s a chronicle of daily living that doctors have been largely unable to read.
But a handful of researchers are getting better at deciphering these gaseous clues, bringing us closer to the day when a kind of disease breathalyzer could be part of a routine checkup or maybe even a cell phone app.