A Diabetes Patient’s Best Friend: Dogs May Help Sniff Out Hypoglycemic Episodes

These episodes occur when a type 1 diabetes patients’ blood sugar levels drops to dangerously low levels, but scientists suggest that canines can be taught to help prevent these threatening health conditions.

Dr. Mark Evans, a consultant physician at the University of Cambridge’s Addenbrooke Hospital says that “humans aren’t sensitive to the presence of isoprene, but dogs with their incredible sense of smell, find it easy to identify and can be trained to alert their owners about dangerously low blood sugar levels”.

Due to the low insulin levels, Type 1 Diabetics need to take daily blood sugar levels to monitor their condition, or risk falling into a hyperglycemic (sugar levels too high) or hypoglycemic (sugar levels are too low) state. An episode is often accompanied by disorientation, shakiness and fatigue, and sometimes unconsciousness or seizure if it lasts too long.

Some people with diabetes already used trained service dogs to alert them when their blood sugar is low.

Claire Pesterfield, a pediatric diabetes specialist nurse at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, has Type 1 diabetes and has trained her golden lab, Magic, to notify her when her sugar levels have dropped. Certain chemicals in the breath may warn the dogs regarding low blood sugar levels.

“If he smells a hypo coming, he will jump up and put his paws on my shoulders to let me know”, said Pesterfield.

The results showed that when women’s blood sugar was very low, their breath contained nearly double the amount of a chemical called isoprene.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge started testing for this chemical change in the patient’s breath based on several reports of dogs accurately warning their owners of changes in blood glucose.

They discovered high levels of a chemical in the exhaled air of those experiencing a rapid fall in blood sugar known as a “hypo”.

Nonetheless, it could be what the dogs are detecting.

For the past few years, medical detection dogs have helped save diabetics’ lives by acting as an early warning system for hypoglycaemia. She explains that Magic has signaled for signs of hypoglycemia more than 2,000 times, including many incidents when she’s asleep and unaware her blood sugar is dropping.

In their paper on Diabetes Care, the university researchers pinpointed a chemical called isoprene. They also noticed that in some cases, isoprene presence nearly doubled.

They then lowered their blood sugar levels carefully by injecting them with insulin, which prompts the body to break down the blood sugar. The discovery could potentially lead to a breathalyzer-like replacement for uncomfortable finger-prick tests.

It’s isoprene. That’s what these dogs are smelling – a common natural chemical found in human breath.