Tag: Hydrogen breath test

Ghoshal, Uday. (2011). How to Interpret Hydrogen Breath Tests. Journal of neurogastroenterology and motility. 17. 312-7. 10.5056/jnm.2011.17.3.312.

A hydrogen breath test is a non-invasive and safe test used to investigate intestinal disorders. You will be given a test solution to drink after you have fasted (not eaten) overnight. The concentration of hydrogen in your breath is then measured using a hydrogen breath test machine.

A hydrogen breath test provides information about the digestion of certain sugars or carbohydrates. This will help determine if you are intolerant to, or cannot digest, certain sugars. One example is lactose (milk sugar) intolerance, a disorder in which people develop symptoms after eating dairy products or foods which contain lactose.

The test is also used for detecting abnormal growth of bacteria within the small intestine. It is normal for bacteria to be found in your large intestine as they aid digestion. However, sometimes bacteria can grow in the small intestine and interfere with the digestion of food; this is a condition known as Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO). We usually administer lactulose (a non-digestible sugar) for this test. Bacterial overgrowth can cause a variety of symptoms including nausea, diarrhoea, bloating, gas, and abdominal cramps.

27Aug 2015 by Ronny Allan 22 Comments

Neuroendocrine Cancer Nutrition Series Article 3 – Gut Health

Diet and Nutrition

Nutritional issues are one of the biggest challenges affecting most Neuroendocrine Cancer patients and nutrition and gut health can become more important issues. It is also a key factor in maintaining a decent quality of life and for most countries without adequate NET Specialist Dietitian support, it remains an unmet need. In this article, I'm discussing the use of probiotics to combat the potential issue of small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) in Neuroendocrine Tumours. When I first indicated this nutrition series was under construction, a few people got quite excited anticipating me to produce advice on what to eat. However, that was never my intention. What people should or should not eat is such a varied problem (or solution?) and that anything I said would only really be of help to those…

One of the many observations I make in my private Neuroendocrine Cancer Facebook group is the misunderstandings caused by the use of non-standard terminology combined with a lack of understanding of what is up to date or not. And I don’t always mean a misunderstanding by patients. If I am to believe doctors uttered some […]

Clinical Trial – Lutathera NETTER-2 Important Update

UPDATE – Sep 25th, 2023 – Novartis radioligand therapy Lutathera® demonstrated statistically significant and clinically meaningful progression-free survival in first line advanced gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NETs) Phase III NETTER-2 trial met primary endpoint of improvement in progression-free survival (PFS) and key secondary endpoint of objective response rate (ORR) in patients with Grade 2 and 3 […]

Lanreotide: Ipsen injection devices vs generic injection devices

Whenever I get a chance to talk to a pharma involved in somatostatin analogue injection devices, I tell them one very important thing …… “To the patient, the injection delivery is almost as important as the drug”. I also add that my opinion is based on thousands of comments about the patient experience in my […]

Cancer doesn’t take holidays (but I do)

Glen Etive Scotland in 2018 After diagnosis in July 2010, with the exception of a planned holiday to Turkey prior to my ‘big surgery’, holidays were put on the back burner, there were too many problems and too many risks – not least of which was the lack of overseas insurance cover for my condition. […]

Update from Ronny Allan: No evidence of progressive disease at any site

Update August 2023. Latest CT surveillance scan reports “No evidence of progressive disease at any site”. Very pleased! With incurable but treatable cancers such as metastatic Neuroendocrine Cancer, ‘Stable‘ is normally not the end of the matter, for many there is still a long road ahead and that road may not be straight or flat. […]