The Special Diabetes Squad

A British charity called Cancer and Bio-detection Dogs has succeeded in training ten dogs in detecting hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar) and  hyperglycaemia (high blood sugar) in diabetics.

A British charity called Cancer and Bio-detection Dogs has succeeded in training ten dogs in detecting hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar) and  hyperglycaemia (high blood sugar) in diabetics. They are able to smell changes in blood sugar levels before their dangerous effects (heart disease, sight loss, coma) are felt by patients. Shirley—one of ten trained hypo-alert dogs—has been paired with a Type-1 diabetes patient, four-year old Rebecca Farrar who now has no need to carry out painful blood sugar tests multiple times every day. Previously, the charity had also successfully trained dogs to detect bladder cancer in 2004. “Dogs have been trained to detect certain odours down to parts per trillion, so we are talking tiny, tiny amounts. Their world is really very different to ours,” Claire Guest of Cancer and Bio-detection Dogs has been quoted as saying.

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