Dogs can detect hypoglycemia

• April 29, 2024

Researchers of the August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (Idibaps) and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (AUB) have shown that dogs who live with people with diabetes, if they are trained, they may be able to sniff any decrease in blood glucose levels or hypoglycemia in that person.
 

Ramón Gomis, director of Idibaps and the project, explains that this initiative comes after English researchers detected that people with diabetes who lived with dogs, diagnosed a change in the behavior of the canine before the symptom of hypoglycaemia was present, according to vivecondiabetes.com

Between the dogs who are chosen according to their olfactory skills more developed to care for people suffering from diabetes, there are two types:
 

1. Alert dogs : they are the ones that notify when there is an irregularity in the sugar level.
2. Response dogs : they may not be able to detect the variation but are prepared to help the patient by carrying their medicine or by notifying someone.

To learn more about the training that dogs require, in GetQoralHealth we present you a video of Teo Mariscal, director of the Bocalán Foundation , the first of its kind in Spain to carry out this training, in accordance with 20minutos.es :

Also, once the dogs have been trained to detect hypoglycemia, the specialists intend to develop a technological tool designed with sensors that warn both people and their treating doctors so they can act immediately, in later stages of coexistence.

It should be remembered that thanks to its great olfactory ability Dogs have been previously trained to detect other ailments, such as epileptic seizures, various types of Cancer and some mental illnesses, besides being very useful for people with some disability.

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