Sniffing Out Cancer

Thanks to Carl…..I have seen a couple of articles over the years and read about instances where there were stories about dogs that could do this even back a couple hundred years ago. Maybe when my dog starts sniffing around in a certain spot I should take heed.

• The canine sense of smell is one of many irreplaceable gifts dogs offer us
• It may be just a matter of time before scent detection dogs are employed as often as the latest technology in medical offices
• Cancer-sniffing canines tend to grab all the headlines, but there are likely many other human diseases and disorders that can be detected by dogs as well

Among the countless one-of-a-kind gifts that dogs offer humans is their miraculous sense of smell. Most of us recognize that canines have sharp noses, but the degree to which they’re able to detect “odorant molecules” is rather beyond our comprehension. Some of the specifics of dogs’ super sniffers are described in a 2012 study comparing the canine ability to detect the odor of cancer to laboratory testing:¹

• Dogs possess an extraordinary dimension of their olfactory epithelium (up to 170 cm vs. 10 cm in humans)² (the olfactory epithelium is a specialized type of tissue inside the nose)
• They also possess a huge number of olfactory receptors (over 200 million vs. 5 million in humans)
• There is also a “dense innervation of [dogs’] olfactory mucosa and their ability to ‘sort’ meaningful incoming odors from those that are unwanted or unnecessary”

Bottom line: These very special anatomic features of the canine nose give dogs the ability to detect even minute amounts of a particular odorant — an ability estimated to be one million times more efficient than in humans!

Dogs Are Able to Detect Cancer Odors With a High Degree of Accuracy

Is a Full Body Sniff-Scan by a Trained Dog in Your Future?

by Dr. Karen Shaw Becker 

 November 17, 2019

Excerpted From The List