My Startup Story

When I started building the first prototype of AIRE, the personal breath tester, it didn’t have a name really, in fact I didn’t really have any goals for it, beyond getting it to work. I did on some level believe that, if I could get it to work and have it accurately measure hydrogen on the breath, then it might be useful for someone else — my girlfriend, Grace.

…a very common but poorly understood condition…

She had been diagnosed quite some time ago with IBS, a very common but poorly understood condition that can wreak havoc on your gastrointestinal tract. We had moved in together and while I knew Grace had some digestive problems, I had no idea how badly affected she was, by the simple act of trying to digest the food she ate. We talked about it and it became clear to me that she had tried a lot of things, but hadn’t had much success.

…most of the medications were really very limited…

I was doing a Ph.D. at the time, so had access to the research literature, so I started to read up on what were effective solutions at the time. I found out that most of the medications were really very limited and didn’t get you much beyond what a placebo could offer. Then, I found out about the low FODMAP diet, which was an emerging treatment at the time. It had some impressive results in some early trials, with up to 3-in-4 people benefiting substantially. This was exciting and myself and Grace proceeded to work through the steps of the diet. It worked pretty well for Grace, but it required cutting out pretty much everything that you’d want to eat voluntarily, before reintroducing certain foods in a particular order and relying on how you felt to guide which foods should be cut out and which to put back in. That’s a major simplification, but it’s hard, takes a long time and very often, at least anecdotally, many do the reintroduction phase haphazardly or not at all. That’s a big deal, because many of the foods you’re cutting out are really good for you. In fact, if I’ve learned anything from my study of digestive health, it’s that the diversity of what you eat is at least as important as what you eat.

…they are like crack for your bacteria.

Around the time I came across the low FODMAP diet, I also came across breath analysis. As somebody coming from engineering I was overjoyed to find a way of measuring the actual underlying processes. It comes back to FODMAPs, which themselves are certain categories of carbohydrates. Some of them are hard to absorb and some are completely non-absorbable, but either way, if they get as far as the colon, they are like crack for your bacteria. Very rapidly they will be broken down by the bacteria that are resident in the colon, producing certain gases. As you digest your meals over the day, these gases start to build up. This happens for everyone, and you might even feel a little bloated. However, for people with IBS, even a relatively small inflation of their gut can cause a great deal of pain. There’s more to it than that, but that’s one of the ways in which IBS sucks and also why breath analysis is an interesting technology. As it happens, some of those gases that are produced seep out through the walls of the gut and into your blood. As your blood does the rounds, it passes through the lungs, where some of the gases will exchange into your airways. That means you can pick it up on the breath with the correct equipment.

It’s not going to cure IBS, nothing can, for now

Fast forward a few years and we’d developed the first personal breath test device to help people figure out what they are digesting effectively and what they are not. It’s not going to cure IBS, nothing can, for now, but it can help you work out what foods make you feel less terrible and start to get a degree of control over your gut and by extension, your life. Thousands of people have already bought a device and started the journey with us and for that we are sincerely thankful. We’re a small startup, so we’ve had to learn as we go, but we promise to keep building out the app and developing all sorts of new products and services for as long as we can, so that hopefully we can make a significant difference for the people out there with IBS and conditions like IBS.

Aonghus Shortt, CEO, FoodMarble

Edit 15 April 2020

My (now) fiancée Grace wrote a blog about her personal experience of living with IBS — I recommend you give it a read.

FoodMarble is a pocket-sized breath analysis device and app. Based off validated clinical technology, it can help you find the foods that are most compatible with your specific digestive system. To find out more, visit foodmarble.com