Can Animals Sniff Out Cancer?

By CNCA on Sep 16 2009 | Comments |

Although it certainly sounds far-fetched, a growing body of research is proving how an animal's extraordinary sense of smell may detect such diseases as tuberculosis, diabetes and even certain forms of cancer.

Some of the more interesting results have come from the Pine Street Foundation, a California-based non-profit group whose mission is to help cancer patients make better treatment decisions through education and research, through their work with dogs. Just three years ago, international research funded by the foundation discovered that a dog's keen sense of smell could rule out or detect the presence of early or late-stage lung and breast cancer an astonishing 90 percent of the time.

With the support of governmental funding, Pine Street researchers are taking the "sniff" test a step further, to determine if a trained group of dogs can detect early-stage ovarian cancer in samples of exhaled breath.

What's more, an Irish study published late last year in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine tracked anecdotal reports from 212 dog owners, all Type 1 diabetics, who reported warnings from their pets about hypoglycemic events.

Even more amazing is how the African pouched rat can be trained to detect explosives as well as tuberculosis cells in a Petri dish more efficiently than conventional methods, as you can see in this awesome YouTube video.