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 will actually sit in the stomach for hours or even days at a time," Dr. Bryan Curtin said.

But White was diagnosed with gastroparesis, leaving her feeling like she'd just eaten when she hadn't.

"Even though I'm hungry, I still felt full. I couldn't eat a whole meal," White said.

Finally, the breath's concentration of hydrogen and methane gas provide insight into any common sugar intolerance.

"Then I have a dietician that works directly with me, and a lot of times, the first step is to, kind of, have somebody, you know, objectively look at your diet and, sort of, identify potential trouble spots," Curtin said.

White did that, and finally found the relief she'd been looking for, for more than a year.

If you have unexplained chronic GI symptoms, such as constipation, nausea, diarrhea and heartburn, it may be time to consider a motility disorder.