It was a quiet night, and Dorrie Nuttall was fast asleep. Her seven-year-old son was sleepingnext to her hooked up to a machine, which was supposed to alert her if his glucose levelswere too low. The alert never came. Not from the machine, anyway.
Jedi, Luke’s adorable diabetes-sniffing dog, started jumping on and off the bed. Nuttall didn’twake up, so Jedi took it up a notch. He laid on top of Nuttall. She woke up and checkedLuke’s monitor. His levels seemed to be fine, but Jedi was insistent. Nuttall pricked his fingerand tested the blood. His glucose was dangerously low – less than half of what was displayedon the machine’s monitor. Nuttall gave her son a glucose tablet and watched nervously as hislevels stabilized. Her dog had just saved her son’s life.
Jedi isn’t the only four-legged hero sniffing out danger. Dogs are being trained to identify earlywarning signs for many diseases. And even untrained dogs are making a difference.
In 2008, Maureen Burns noticed that her dog, Max, seemed depressed. He was getting old, soBurns prepared for the worst, but it wasn’t Max who was in danger. She began noticing thatMax sometimes sniffed her breast. Then one day, when Max was looking at her strangely, shejust knew it was cancer. Sure enough, she went to the hospital where the doctors discovered acancerous breast tumor. When it was removed, Max’s behavior changed immediately. He wasonce again his happy-go-lucky self. Burns credits him with saving her life. Canines have incredibly powerful noses, but some humans can smell diseases too. Joy Milne isa former nurse who can smell Parkinson’s disease. Six years before her husband wasdiagnosed with Parkinson’s, Milne noticed a slight change in his scent. She couldn’t quiteplace the new odor and told her husband that his hygiene was lacking. It wasn’t until she meta group of people with the same odor at a Parkinson’s support group meeting that she puttwo and two together. There is currently no definitive test for Parkinson’s disease. And unfortunately, symptomstend to show after it is too late. When researchers heard that Milne had detected the diseasein her husband years before he had been diagnosed, they were intrigued. They tested herability to smell Parkinson’s, and the results were incredible. She was consistently able toidentify patients with the disease.
With Milne’s help, the researchers isolated ten molecules that are found in people withParkinson’s disease. The hope is that these molecules will lead to a test that diagnoses thedisease earlier. These molecules could even be used to train dogs to smell it in patients.
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