訓練有素的狗能嗅出癌症
狗是人類最好的朋友，也可能是人類健康最大的盟友。《今日醫學新聞》報道稱，越來越多的狗用於訓練嗅出癌症、糖尿病、細菌感染和其他健康問題。
美國組織Dogs4Diabetes的研究發現，狗狗們能在患有糖尿病的主人血糖指數太低時提醒他們。一隻狗有超過3億的氣味腺（人大概有500萬），這些使得狗的嗅覺的靈敏度是人的10萬倍。
Dogs4Diabetics的常務董事拉爾夫認爲，所有疾病都與氣味有關，因爲身體會發生變化，這些氣味明顯體現在呼吸和汗味裏。
Man's best friend may friend also be his best health ally. Medical News Today reports a rise in the number dogs trained to sniff out cancer, diabetic conditions, bacterial infections, and other health problems.
Research from the UK charity Medical Detection Dogs and the US organization Dogs4Diabetes has found dogs are being used to alert their diabetic owners when their blood sugar levels are too low (hypoglycemic). Other research has found dogs are able to detect clostridium difficile — a nasty bacterial infection that causes may illnesses acquired in hospitals — in patient stool samples and hospital air.
New research is also examining at the use of dogs to detect various types of cancer — named "bio-detection dogs." Earlier this year, Medical News Today detailed how researchers have found dogs are able to detect volatile organic compounds (VOCs), or odorants, that are altered in the early stages of ovarian cancer. Another study conducted by researchers at Medical Detection Dogs also found that these VOCs are biomarkers for bladder cancer.
Using four trained sniffer dogs to analyze urine samples from patients who had bladder cancer, alongside healthy people, the researchers found that the dogs were able to detect the cancer with an accuracy level that ranged from 56 percent to 92 percent.
A dog has up to 300 million scent glands (a human has about 5 million), which makes a dog's sense of smell up to 100,000 times more sensitive.
"We believe all diseases have scent associated with the diseases, due to the changes occurring within the body, with different organs expressing different chemical compounds," Ralph Hendrix, executive director of Dogs4Diabetics, told Medical News Today. "These scents are evident in breath and sweat."
