Dr Doggy detects disease
NOT only do they make great pets, but dogs also have a remarkable sense of smell that can be used to detect a wide range of diseases.
Some dogs are trained by security services to find drugs or explosives, while others are used to hunt for truffles.
But that is not all they can do. Thanks to their highly developed sense of smell, canines are also able to detect odours that are imperceptible to humans, which indicate the presence of certain diseases.
Here are some of the conditions that they are being taught to find:
> Covid-19
In response to the ongoing health crisis, several researchers are training dogs to detect cases with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
The goal of these programmes is to determine if there is a specific smell in the perspiration of people infected by the coronavirus that canines can reliably identify.
Initially developed by the staff at the French École Vétérinaire de
Maisons-Alfort, the method, which is being tested in Strasbourg, Corsica and other locations outside of France, has demonstrated encouraging preliminary results.
> Malaria
This parasitic disease, which is transmitted to humans by Anopheles mosquitoes, can also be detected by our canine friends.
In 2019, English researchers presented the results of a study conducted in The Gambia, which involved training dogs with socks that had been worn by children infected with malaria, who otherwise had no symptoms (asymptomatic).
The experiment proved to be so successful that researchers are now planning on using this method to test for asymptomatic cases of the disease.
> Migraine
Being able to anticipate a migraine attack can significantly help reduce the intensity and duration of the pain it causes.
According to a 2013 study published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, around 60% of participants declared that their dog warned them of an imminent migraine headache one or two hours before they began to feel it.
> Diabetes
According to a 2019 British study published in the journal Plos One, dogs can detect hypoglycaemic episodes in people suffering type 1 diabetes in more than 80% of cases.
The study further explained that dogs can also be trained to adopt a specific signalling behaviour, like nuzzling their owner’s legs when they identify the odour of hypoglycaemia.
> Cancer
In recent years, there have been several widely reported cases of dogs alerting owners who were suffering from cancer.
In 2015, a Labrador named Daisy, who had been trained to sniff out cancer, warned her mistress by repeatedly nuzzling her bosom.
A short time later, the woman was diagnosed with breast cancer.
This surprising phenomenon is made possible by a particular odour caused by the disease in the urine and blood of affected humans.
A 2019 American study notably showed that beagles trained to detect the odour of lung cancer in blood samples could effectively identify the disease in more than 96% of cases.