Can dolphins help with diabetics?

New research has added to the fact that bottlenose dolphins go into a safe diabetic state during their overnight fasting. This results in maintaining high levels of glucose in their blood. On February 18th, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, more research was presented suggesting that dolphins could be a good model for studying and experimenting with for diabetes. It could provide greater understanding and results for people living with the disease as well. Carbohydrates usually give animals a large amount of glucose. What dolphins eat cause them to have a lot of protein and not so much glucose-rich carbohydrates. It is possible that dolphins have something called a "diabetic switch" which gives them food even when they do not eat. Veterinary epidemiologist Stephanie Venn-Watson said "Brains need sugar to function, but a diet of fish has no sugar". This believed in "switch" could possibly enable dolphins to control their diabetic state. A person with type 2 diabetes has high levels of glucose when they are resistant to insulin. They do not respond to the insulin, which tells their body tissues to soak up the glucose from in the blood. Dolphins, however, are a different case altogether. When a person has a high level of glucose it can prove to be hazardous, but for a dolphin it might help fuel their big brains when they are in between meal times.

Studies show that this "insulin resistance" that dolphins have can be bad. The insulin level in something is when cells in the liver, muscles, and fat tissue take glucose from the blood and keep it in the liver and muscles. From this resistance the dolphins could start to produce a "pathological form of diabetes," meaning there is no way for the diabetes to go away, and they cannot control it. For weeks scientists worked to study dolphin's insulin levels. They did this after each dolphin ate, and they studied six dolphins. They found that when dolphins fast, they "show changes in blood chemistry" and they also have changes in their glucose level, which is exactly like humans. Humans and dolphins are very different, but we both have big brains and large blood cells which can carry big amounts of glucose. Some scientists believe that humans have a similar "switch," like the dolphins, in our bodies. Scientists believe that after the ice age, humans could not eat carbs because all the foods with carbs froze. So, they believe that humans used this "insulin resistance" to keep glucose in the brain. They believe something similar to this happened to the dolphins many years ago. In conclusion, scientists think and hope that maybe they could find a diabetic "switch" in humans.

By, Raina, Irena, and Aliza