Medical News Today reports a rise in the number of dogs trained to find 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 warn their diabetic owners when their blood sugar levels are too low. Other research has found dogs are able to find clostridium difficile (艰难梭菌)—a dirty bacterial infection that causes many 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 (有气味的东西), which are altered in the early stages of ovarian (卵巢的) cancer. Another study conducted by researchers at Medical Detection Dogs also found that these VOCs are biomarkers for bladder (膀胱) cancer.
Using four trained sniffer dogs to analyze urine (尿) 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 (嗅腺) (a human has about 5 million), which makes a dog’s sense of smell up to 100, 000 times more sensitive than people’s.
“We believe all diseases have smell 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 smells are evident in breath and sweat.”
【小题1】What does the passage mainly talk about?| A．Trained dogs are very clever. |
| B．Trained dogs can find out diseases like cancer, diabetes and so on. |
| C．Dogs that are trained have a good sense of smell. |
| D．Dogs that are trained can follow the rules. |
| A．The dirty air that was polluted in hospitals. |
| B．A special kind of dog that can find out diseases. |
| C．A disease that cannot be cured. |
| D．A dirty bacterial infection that results in many illnesses in hospitals. |
| A．He thinks dogs, smell influences patients’ moods. |
| B．He thinks dogs, smell influences patients, behavior. |
| C．He believes the diseases have something to do with smell. |
| D．He believes the diseases have something to do with lifestyle. |
