Medical Breakthroughs: Patients test breath at clinic for gastrointestinal diseases [Video]

Millions of Americans suffer from digestive problems.

These conditions usually require a colonoscopy or another invasive procedure to diagnose, but healthcare continues to advance and now there could be a new way to test for these issues.

Forty percent of all Americans suffer from gastrointestinal diseases, such as nausea, fecal incontinence and IBS.

Lateara White knows the feeling. She spent a whole year throwing up every single night.

“I would vomit at least five times out of the week, at night. I would always get it at night,” White said.

That’s when she turned to a new breath and motility center at Mercy Medical Center.

In this digestive clinic, patients breathe into a bag and those breath gasses are then tested for food intolerance and malabsorption, which means it analyzes how food is moving through the digestive system.

“People with motility problems, like gastroparesis, where the stomach is not, you know, doing that process efficiently, the food …