Our departmental laboratory recently became aware of a local start-up company that wanted to "Introduce Breath Analysis into Clinical Pathology Laboratory Testing."
During the on-line conversation, a staff member wrote: "My friend swears his dog knows when his diabetic son’s blood sugar is off."
Is this possible? Can a dog detect poor diabetic control?
Response (posted November 7):
Ketosis (which occurs with poor diabetic control) can be detected in breath. Since dogs have a better sense of smell than humans, I would believe that a dog could detect ketosis.
Posted by On 11/9/2011
It may be possible. I think there will be research going on to develop breath test for certain diseases near future. This comment was approved by the NACBLOG editorial board. Please remember to add your name and affiliation!
Posted by On 11/4/2011
The WSJ reported in September of a rat that can smell positive Tb smears better that techs can screen them. Dogs can detect patients having myocardial ischemia before symptoms. The English are studying dogs smelling urines positive for bladder cancer cells. We had a therapy dog who visited nursing homes and alerted at the door of a women having a "silent" MI. When he would not move, staff sent her to the hospital, where she was diagnosed. Cynthia Bowman MD
Dogs are very sensitive not only to odours but also to behaviour. As any dog trainer will tell you dogs can be react to the tiniest cues from their owners. Even if it turns out that dogs are cued by behaviour, not smell it does not detract from the very real possibility that a hypoglycaemic event will change the composition of a patient's breath. Whether that's detectable with existing analytical techniques in a way that can be helpful for patients is another matter. J. Rueda
Posted by On 11/3/2011
Having Type I diabetes, I volunteered a few years ago for an organization in Chapel Hill, NC. They are training dogs to alert owners. I was sent individually wrap sterile gauze which I used one everytime I tested my glucose. They results were recorded on a zip-lock bag containing the gauze. Susan Utley, MT (HEW) Duke University Health System
Yes it is possible. I work in Regulatory at a major IVD company. A former co-worker of mine (W.) had two service dogs (one in service, one in training) that he brought into work every day, who were trained to signal whenever he experienced precipitous hypoglycema. He was on my floor and we greeted the dogs daily. I was out of the office at the time, but I heard of at least one case where the dogs did their job; a coworker made W. drink some juice and all was well. This comment was approved by the NACBLOG editorial board. Please remember to add your name and affiliation!
Yes Indeed! As a Laboratory manager I am always skeptical of anedotal accounts of detections. One of our Nurses on our oncology unit has actaully been able to get his dog certified as an aid. His dog has proven over numerous accounts by pulling on the leash to go home during walks and barking when they are out. Sure enough the little guy has always been correct. Is he smelling ketones? Is he recognizing a behavior change in his owner....I don't know what it is, but it is facinating to see the two together. Man's best friend living up to the expectation. This comment was approved by the NACBLOG editorial board. Please remember to add your name and affiliation!
I was in a study where I would wipe my skin with a sterile guaze, seal in a bag, and write the glucose result on it. Seems they are now traiining dogs to alert patients when their glucose is abnormally high or low, so they can respond quickly. This comment was approved by the NACBLOG editorial board. Please remember to add your name and affiliation!
I was in a study being done in Chapel Hill, NC where I had to do wipes, write down what my glucose result was, and send back. They are actually training dogs to the smell of sweat from a patient who is high or low to alert them that they need to check their glucose. This comment was approved by the NACBLOG editorial board. Please remember to add your name and affiliation!
I have read this before. And I've also had a patient tell me that she had skin cancer removed in several places from her face. Her dog would not "kiss" her on the areas where the cancer existed. When she developed another skin cancer on her face and the dog avoided it, she went to her dermatologist. He confirmed melanoma! This comment was approved by the NACBLOG editorial board. Please remember to add your name and affiliation!
dog can detect scents given off by persons bodies who have certain diseases. This comment was approved by the NACBLOG editorial board. Please remember to add your name and affiliation!
http://www.dogs4diabetics.com/ This comment was approved by the NACBLOG editorial board. Please remember to add your name and affiliation!
The Can-Do-Canines Corporation in Minneapolis, MN currently trains dogs for service to detect a certain scent given off by diabetics when their glucose is dropping; this is especially useful for those diabetics that cannot physically sense when their blood glucose is dropping (neurological deficiency) before checking their blood glucose on a meter. Once these dogs detect the scent they will basically harrass their client to check their blood glucose, so that hypoglycemic action can be taken before their glucose level gets beyond the point of self-help. Can-Do-Canines has partnered with a local prison to use inmates to assist in this valuable training with these dogs. We adopted a golden retriever from this organization as a family pet, but I was amazed to hear about how this training was done by Can-Do-Canines !! Type I Diabetic and Laboratory Quality Manager in Cedar Rapids, Iowa This comment was approved by the NACBLOG editorial board. Please remember to add your name and affiliation!
Absolutely. There is a large body of anecdotal evidence for this in the service dog community. Dogs trained to bring a "case" on command quickly associate (smell of ketones?? - mechanism is unknown) and bring the case when needed, prior to the individual realizing it themselves. There have been multiple reported instances when dogs have awoken their companions from sleep - a very dangerous time for a diabetic - to alert them of their need. There is an entire community around training "alert" dogs for diabetics, cardiac alert, seizure alert, etc. (I have not kept up with the literature recently, but I would assume that studies have been or are being conducted around these abilities.) This comment was approved by the NACBLOG editorial board. Please remember to add your name and affiliation!
Of course it is possible. There was a case on TV a few years back about a cat that saved her owners life doing just such a thing. There are assisstance dogs who are trained to detect just before an epileptic goes into seizure and similarly prior to panic attacks for those people. There are so many cases of dogs doing this sort of thing I am surprised you even question it. This comment was approved by the NACBLOG editorial board. Please remember to add your name and affiliation!
I have no doubt that a person’s breath odor, and even body odor changes as a result of blood sugar levels, especially if ketones are even slightly elevated. I also am sure a dog can detect those changes. What is less predictable though is how the dog might react to the odors and the pet owner’s ability to understand the dog’s reaction. This comment was approved by the NACBLOG editorial board. Please remember to add your name and affiliation!
There has been some work by Queen's University in Belfast indicating dogs may be able to detect their type 1 diabetic owners hypoglycemia. There have also been reports of dogs being able to detect melanoma as well as bladder cancer. Dogs have a very highly developed sense of smell, and are extremely tuned in to their owners behavior, so I see no reason why they wouldn't make excellent diagnosticians! However, like many of our synthetic doagnostic tools, specificity of the "doggy nose" test in a random population I expect would be low because of the many inter-individual variations. Bonny Van Marion Co Public Health Department Indianapolis, IN
I am a trainer of service dogs and yes, service dogs can be trained to detect low blood sugar levels. They are also trained to detect impending seizures, used is Parkinson's disease for stabilization and tremors, and have even been trained to sniff out cancer. They are wonderful creatures and we have only scratched the surface of what things they can help us with. Sharon Hall, MT(ASCP)SH Hearts of Gold Service Dogs Volunteer
Dogs have been trained to detect the problem from t Shirts worn by people having a hypoglycemic attack. The study was done in Australia by Dr Alan Stocks. There are attempts being made to identify the compound the dogs detect. The dogs do not need to detect breath, but can detect a chemical that is present on the surface of the body when having a hypo. This comment was approved by the NACBLOG editorial board. Please remember to add your name and affiliation!
Posted by On 11/2/2011
I have several patients whose lives have been saved by their dog. These patients had severe episodes of hypoglycemia and their dog detected this and woke them up. One of them woke up to their dog sitting on top of them . In another instance, the patient woke up covered in dog saliva. The common dog breed that detected the hypoglycemia is a chocolate lab. SR This comment was approved by the NACBLOG editorial board. Please remember to add your name and affiliation!
Hello, I'm not aware whether dogs can detect hypoglycemia but I remember that I read a report about dogs detecting cancer. Maybe there is some link between both? http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/01/0112_060112_dog_cancer.html Thanks, Thomas
Posted by On 11/1/2011
You have posed an interesting question. Personally, I would not be surprised at all if dogs can sniff out when diabetes is not well controlled since is it not likely that volatiles will be increased? I look forward to 07 November for clarification. There is quite a literature that dogs can use their noses to detect skin, bladder, lung, ovarian and breast cancers. Recently, Marine, an eight-year-old black Labrador at Kyushu University in Japan, was shown to be really good at detecting bowel cancer. The paper - Sonoda H, et al. Colorectal cancer screening with odour material by canine scent detection. Gut 2011;50:814-9 (open access!) - is a really great read. It is a beautifully written piece, in my view. I understand that there is research going on to develop “artificial noses”. But I suspect that we in laboratory medicine won’t be out of jobs soon! Callum G Fraser Centre for Research into Cancer Prevention and Screening University of Dundee Scotland