EEVblog Electronics Community Forum

Products => Crowd Funded Projects => Topic started by: RobSmithDev on April 14, 2017, 12:56:37 pm

Title: AIRE - Digestion Tracker?
Post by: RobSmithDev on April 14, 2017, 12:56:37 pm
First post to the eevblog although been reading for some time

Just wondered if anyone knew anything about this, keeps popping up in my social feeds, looks interesting but can't work out (dispite being featured in many places) if it's actually gonna be a useful product or another of these 'lets get some backing a release a pointless product'

https://foodmarble.com/
"AIRE" is a breath test device. It's small but powerful. Together with its app it can help you find the foods that are most compatible with your digestive system.

When food isn’t digested fully, a lot of it will turn into gas in the gut. Many people cannot efficiently handle this gas, so it builds up causing bloating, pain and even diarrhea or constipation.

Fortunately, you can measure how much of this gas is being generated, since some of it will pass from the gut into the bloodstream. The gas then travels in your blood and when it reaches the lungs, it exits on your breath, where it can be measured.

The technology for doing this is used in the top digestive health clinics and gastroenterology departments worldwide.
Title: Re: AIRE - Digestion Tracker?
Post by: frozenfrogz on April 14, 2017, 03:20:00 pm
Some types of intolerance can be diagnosed that way. If I recall correctly it mainly works for different types of sugar:
After ingesting a specific amount of sugar (let’s say 25g of lactose dissolved in warm water), you take measurements of H2 concentration in the air you breath out. For sugar types you can not metabolize, there will be a spike in H2 concentration, because bacteria in the colon will produce H2 gasses that are dissolving into the blood stream and finally exhaled.
The whole procedure takes several hours for each type of sugar you want to test.

After looking at the FAQ, that seems exactly what the AIRE is measuring.

In general, I don’t think this device will be of much use, because figuring out what exact type of »XYZ« you can not metabolize is a real PITA.
If you eat a regular meal and use this device the collected data will be almost useless garbage, because you would need to individually test each and every component of that meal, down to the different sugars, fiber, proteins...
In that regard, your gut-feeling will be of the same use - if not better.
Eat whole foods, drop the pre-processed crap and junk food and your body will tell you what it needs :)

In short: The AIRE is just another piece to throw on the ever growing pile of "smart garbage" no one needs and no one should spend money on.
Title: Re: AIRE - Digestion Tracker?
Post by: moz on May 18, 2017, 02:52:50 am
Having been through a small elimination diet trial myself, the machine is not the bit that matters. As the frozenfrog says, once you get out of pure chemicals and into foods, the combinatorial explosion of ingredients poses a problem. But the real problem is that your gut doesn't respond independently to the combined chemicals.

I had a collection of dieticians and gastroenterologists all providing opinions. The arglebargle about biota and intolerances and high-impact polysyllabic neologisms was all very useful for them but a lot went straight over my head. What really mattered was the nice dietician who sat down with me and ran through a bunch of foods to avoid in true listicle style and a whole pile of ingredients and recipes to try.

Doing that via an app, any app, is going to be hard. Can you list all the chemicals in whatever you most recently ate (or even a cup of coffee?). The Melbourne University "Low FODMAP diet advisor" app tries, but I had to spend a bit of time digging and it ends up being more of a learning aid than something I use every day. Albeit perhaps because it's not an exact match to my needs. Which brings me to...

What seems to work for me, and most people I know, is learning to listen to your body. "last time I ate this it worked as a purgative" is much more useful than "does this have more than 0.1g/litre of {long chemical name}".