Hypoglycemia Alert Dogs: A Novel, Cost-effective Approach for Diabetes Monitoring?

The recent publication of the results of 3 small trials, and as many as 5 case reports on dogs producing clear and intelligible alerts in the presence of their owners' hypoglycemia, opens an intriguing clinical scenario for management of diabetes. The skill seems attributable to the ability of dogs to identify patterns in skin and breath odors as well as to understand and interpret visual cues from humans during hypoglycemia. Provided that further trials can confirm the findings, the use of diabetes alert dogs that are trained to detect the onset of hypoglycemia can be regarded as a fast, versatile, reliable, and cost-effective approach for safeguarding the health of individuals with diabetes.