Imagine if you could just switch a disease on and off. Wouldn’t that be a teenager’s dream? You could say to your teacher, “Well, I’m literally feeling sick today – see I’m getting a rash. Sorry, but I can’t take this test today, I’m going home.” Although this is currently impossible, this article discusses how bottle nose dolphins have the ability to switch diabetes on and off, providing an example for how humans may be able to fight the disease as well.
These dolphins have adapted to be able to ” keep their blood glucose levels high in a diabetic-like state when they have no food to feed the demand from their brains.” They become diabetic at night, but wake up the next morning to eat and no longer have diabetes. Since both humans and dolphins share “the same glucose blood chemistry needed to feed our large brains,” if we are able to study how dolphins control their insulin levels, we may be able to manipulate our bodies in order to mimic dolphins and turn off diabetes in humans. Unfortunately, since nobody wishes to make bottle nose dolphins testing subjects in labs, it is unlikely that further research will occur and diabetes will continue to rise.
Would it be inhumane to use dolphins as lab animals in order to end diabetes?
Would there be a way to study dolphins without turning them into testing subjects in labs?
3 Responses to “Dolphins to save the world?”
I think that if the researchers can pull this “experiment” off then it would be a huge leap forward in the medical world. Diabetes is currently an incurable disease and to be able to cure it would be a medical phenomenon. I read up on Christina’s point: “Unfortunately, since nobody wishes to make bottle nose dolphins testing subjects in labs, it is unlikely that further research will occur and diabetes will continue to rise.” According to http://abh-news.com/tag/dolphins-diabetes-treatment, it is possible to humanely test a dolphin’s blood glucose complex. In fact, they are already doing it. The article states, “The Scientists team took blood samples…[and] Venn-Watson and her colleagues [took] measurement of insulin levels in six dolphins two hours after the animals ate.” They are doing what they can to try and examine, research, and study these animals without having to take them into a lab. If these studies prove effective, who knows where the future of diabetes will go?!
WOW! This is so interesting. My family has a strong history of diabetes. This article is really interesting because I have heard a lot about diabetes. I think it would be ok to use dolphines as lab tests, as long as they arent treated badly. It would be for a great cause. I think you would have to some how study the insides of the dolphins to see how they turn off the diabetes. In the Article it says that Dolphines learned how to do this 55 million years ago! That is crazy. I wonder how they would test the dolphins without harming them?
its very true people many people hate labs if they study dolphins because there so great and fantastic so they do not study them. they let them die in peace and don’t get study on. in my a pinon I think just leave them be even though it could save many humans from diabetes. though there just as important as humans so i say leave them dolphins be