1. The World First Hydrogen Breathalyzer
to Detect Lactose/Fructose Intolerance
for Smartphone
Truong Mai, Romeo Rosario, Payal Maheshwari, and Raymond Iu
Department of Bioengineering, University of California, Riverside
Biomedical Engineering Society, University of California, Riverside
05/19/2015
Pic. 1:​ Hand in Hand team (BMES)
Today, at least 30 to 50 million Americans have lactose or fructose intolerance. [2] Besides
abdominal pain and diarrhea, it is difficult for those people to have enough calcium. [11]
Moreover, fructose intolerance can cause liver disease.[10] Hydrogen breath tests are
commonly used in clinics to detect lactose and fructose intolerance.
Fig. 1​: Maket of Breathalyzer in U.S. [8] [9]

2. Before the test, a patient needs to discontinue probiotic use for 4-5 days and antibiotics for 2
weeks. Also he should not smoke before taking the test within the one hour, sleep nor exercise.
There is a 24 hour preparation period before the test. In the first 12 hours, he needs to avoid
grain products, fruits, all sugar, vegetables, nuts, seeds, beans, soy products, and alcohol.
However, he can eat baked or broiled seafood, chicken, turkey, lean beef, crisp bacon, lean
pork, eggs, plain steamed white/brown rice, plain coffee, or tea. He also uses a pinch of salt and
pepper and a teaspoon of olive oil. In the next 12 hours, he must drink water only and brush his
teeth before taking the test. This requirement applies for both taking test in clinic and at home.
[5][6]
In the clinic, the patient needs to breath test into a bag or syringes. This process repeats 3 to 4
times. Then he will drink testing sugar with water which contains 50 g lactose or 25 g fructose
depend on each test. The amount of hydrogen and methane is tested every 15 minutes for 2 to
4 hours. All the data will be input to a specially made computer software specific to breath tests
and calculated. If the amount of hydrogen is more than 20 ppm, it is a positive fructose/lactose
intolerance. [1] The test costs $70 total.[3]
For one who doesn’t want to go to clinic, he can pay $175 for a mailing test kit of
Commonwealth Laboratories for one day result.[4] In the test kit, there are 10 test tubes, a
package of sugar powder and a straw. The user will blow to the test tube for 3 to 4 seconds till
seeing condensation. After finishing the first test tube, he will mix the powder with water and
drink it all. Then he will blow to a test tube every 20 minutes. Each of the test tube needs to be
labeled. [5] These are our two biggest competitors.
Pic.2:​ Truong presents at the Internal Competition of Senior Design Teams (Photo: Dr. Bao)
The problem now is how to make the device with similar accuracy(a), speed (b), user
interaction(c) and cheaper (d). At the moment, we bought a hydrogen sensor for about $5,
which uses a semiconductor technology, is not accurate enough. The range is from 300 to
100000 ppm. The preheat time is over 48 hours which is stabilizing time before reliable
measurement can be recorded. Bactrack.com which owns a patent how to make the
semiconductor sensing alchohol more accurate and faster. Breathalyzers in the market now
don’t need to pre-heat

3. We will do more research about how they accomplish it. So far, we made the calibration for this
sensor base on the datasheet of the manufacture. We have Arduino code with a calibration
formula, and a wiring schematic.
Fig. 2​: a) Resistance at different concentration of hydrogen over resistance at zero hydrogen
concentration. b) Formula for calibration. c) Plot of Rs/Ro vs. Hydrogen concentration from
manufacturer's plot in a). d) plot of c) in log scale. e) Programing code in Arduino
Pic. 3​: Schematic of the device
(a)The goal is to measure low hydrogen concentrations around 20 ppm. A solution is using an
$811 multigas detector from Grainger Inc. to detect hydrogen amounts from 0 to 1999 ppm. Its
resolution is 1 ppm. [7] If we can get this technology, we can make it same quality, but cheaper.
(b) In the article “How to Interpret Hydrogen Breath Tests” of Ghoshal, the amount of hydrogen
is higher than 20 ppm at after 50 min of sugar consumption. From this, measurement of
hydrogen before 50 min is not necessary [1]. We make the test in less than 20 minutes.
(c) We are developing a cap, which prevents the sensor from saturating, has an aesthetically
pleasing shape and LED light. It received good feedback from students and high school
students on the Internal Competition of Senior Design teams. Secondly, the idea of having a
phone app which can interact with users by expressing emotion to user's’ results. The data will
be sent to the phone via a bluetooth and showed as a plot in real time. It then will give advices

4. how to make it better and actively encourage users to keep up. Basically, the app and the
device can become a Tamagotchi friend.
Pic. 4​: The first protocol of our hydrogen breathalyzer. The blue LED on means good and red
LED on is bad.
Pic. 5​: 1st prototype complete set with batteries, a LED pet as a lift, and a UCR mascot.
Pic. 6​: Concept of interaction between an user and our device
(d) Our first protocol of the inaccurate hydrogen breathalyzer costs $25. The most expensive
part is the sensor. We will try to make it as cheap as possible.

5. V. Fund Allocation
Table 1:​ Bought materials from Sparkfun.com [U.S. Dollars]
Table 2: ​Bought materials from Amazon.com [U.S. Dollars]

6. Total spent up to this point is $137.64
Fund left is $112.4

7. We thank Dr. Park, Dr. Bao, Dr. Lyubovitsky, and Omar Mahmood for advice and assistance.
We also want to acknowledge the Biomedical Engineering Club for funding this project.
Reference
[1]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3155069/
[2]http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/gastroenterology_hepatology/clinical_services/specialty_serv
ices/breath_testing.html
[3]http://www.gihealth.com.au/ourservices/hydrogen-breath-testing.aspx
[4] http://hydrogenbreathtesting.com/store.html
[5] http://hydrogenbreathtesting.com/taking-a-test.html
[6]http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/gastroenterology_hepatology/_forms/patient_info/Breath%20
test%20instructions_updated.pdf
[7]http://www.grainger.com/product/MSA-Multi-Gas-Detector-33RJ34?s_pp=false&picUrl=//static
.grainger.com/rp/s/is/image/Grainger/33RJ34_AW01?$smthumb$#ask-answer-container
[8]http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-12-22-personal-breathalyzers-sales-increa
se_N.htm
[9]http://wintergreenresearch.com/reports/breath_analyzer.htm
[10]http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/hereditary-fructose-intolerance
[11]http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/tc/lactose-intolerance-topic-overview