Dogs could be helpful for diabetes patients’ health. Here’s how

We all knew dogs are kind of awesome and after a rough day, playing with a dog can visibly cheer us up. But according to a recent study, a dog’s presence can have far more serious benefits to one’s health, especially if they are a type 1 diabetes patient.

According to the study published in the journal PLOS One, trained dogs have the potential to improve the lives of type 1 diabetes patients by helping them, regulate their blood sugar in a non-invasive way. The study further said that trained dogs altered their owners to 83% hypoglycemic episodes in over 4,000 hypo- and hyper-glycaemic and hyper-glycaemic episodes that were examined.

A hypoglycaemic episode happens when blood sugar drops low in dangerous proportions. If untreated, it can lead to unconsciousness or in some cases death.

The researchers at the University of Bristol who conducted the study said, they already knew about the benefits of a medical detection dog for patients through previous studies.Nicola Rooney, from the research team, added, “However, to date, evidence has come from small scale studies. Our study provides the first large-scale evaluation of using medical detection dogs to detect hypoglycaemia,"

Medical Detection Dogs train pet dogs to respond to the odour of human disease and help owners cope with life-threatening diseases.

The researchers assessed the reliability of 27 trained glycaemia alert dogs, whose owners provided six to 12 weeks continual worth of blood records detailing every time the dog was alerted.

Because the dogs are familiar with their owners, they are conditioned to respond with alerting behaviours when their owners' blood sugar levels fall outside a target range. This helps patients take appropriate actions (administering insulin shot or eating to retain the right glucose level) in a timely manner.

Cheerful news for type 1 diabetes patients!