Alerting Dogs helpful to Diabetics

By Julia Hanf in Diabetes on March 21st, 2008

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by Julia Hanf

Dogs have been proven to have the ability to sense changes in a diabetic’s blood sugar levels. Dogs are already active in assisting the deaf, the blind, and helping other physically disabled persons. By using their keen sense of smell, a dog can sense when their owner’s blood sugar levels are dropping and give an early warning alert.

Dog’s keen sense of smell gives it the ability to watch over the blood sugar levels of diabetics. Dogs are able to detect through their 5th sense. Dogs for Diabetics use Labrador retrievers that don’t graduate from guide dog school. These dogs usually flunk for reasons such as refusing to walk in the rain or step onto an escalator - all skills important for being a working dog, but not a general assistance one. These dogs undergo three to four months of training similar to what is used to prepare dog to detect narcotics or explosives. The 2-year-old canines are first taught to detect scent samples of low blood sugar. Then they learn to find that scent on people, and alert others by holding in their mouth a soft tube that hangs from around their neck.

When the hypoglycemic detection dogs were initially announced a few years ago, many were skeptical because glucose sensors were about to hit the market. Since then, the verdict has changed in favor of the dogs. Hypoglycemic people, may, emit an odor that is characteristic, which the dogs detect. Dogs are very sensitive to subtle physiological changes in their human companions that may begin five to 45 minutes prior to an actual attack. The dogs then warn their owners so they can find a safe environment or take necessary precautionary measures.

Scientists remain unsure about how the dogs are able to sense changes in their human companions. It is believed that the dogs are reacting to scents created by chemical changes related to glucose imbalance, but no one knows exactly which chemicals cause the scent. Despite this scientific uncertainty, hypoglycemia alert dogs have provided a great sense of relief to people with diabetes and their families, including parents of young children with diabetes and adults whose history of hypoglycemic episodes made it difficult or even dangerous to live alone.

Over 20 million children and adults in the United States have diabetes. Those with the disease have a pancreas that doesn’t produce enough insulin, the hormone the body needs to convert sugars, starches and other food into energy. Diabetics must test their blood glucose level regularly, even sometimes in the middle of the night to avoid the peaks and valleys that can cause organ failure.

Dogs who have earned a graduate degree are accurate for more than 90%. People having this disease really prefer to have these dogs as personal sugar level detector with four legs. The sensors wouldn’t be correct every time as its a machine and there are wear & tears and this is a real mystery that how does the dog detects this blood sugar level and the research are going on to find the truth. Everybody of us hopes to get the reasons how are they so good in picking the glucose level and they should be recognized as a system giving early warning to diabetic patients.

About the Author:

Julia Hanf author of the book How To Play the Diabetes Diet Game and Win Through a real life crisis Julia figured out how to live diabetes free. Visit www.yourdiabetescure.com and learn more about your solution for diabetes.