Sled dogs could hold key to diabetes, obesity
Sled dogs could hold key to diabetes, obesity
March 24, 2009
By Douglas Robson
Special for USA TODAY
Sled dogs competing in the Iditarod, which ended Tuesday, are among the most energy-efficient creatures on Earth, with a capacity to run hundreds of miles day after day without showing the normal signs of fatigue.
Could their fat-burning prowess help uncover ways to prevent and treat obesity in type 2 diabetes?
Michael Davis is on the trail to find out. Davis, a professor at Oklahoma State University who has studied exercise physiology in sled dogs for a decade, recently completed the first phase of research examining how dogs that train for the 1,100-mile Iditarod become "insulin-sensitive" and convert fat to energy so proficiently.
"If we can figure out what exercise is doing to start the process, then we may be able to find how it can be applied to everyone, whether or not they are physically able to exercise," he says.
The Diabetes Action Research and Education Foundation has contributed one-third of the $30,000 research grant. Oklahoma State University is bankrolling the remainder.
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About 24 million Americans have diabetes. Diet and exercise have been shown to prevent the onset of the more common type 2 diabetes.
Typically, the hormone insulin helps the body's cells take up glucose from the blood and turn it into energy. Type 2 diabetics often have problems absorbing glucose in response to the insulin their bodies create.
In January, Davis and collaborators Ray Geor of Michigan State University and Shannon Pratt of North Carolina State University chose 16 dogs in Iditarod-worthy shape from the kennel of one of this year's competitors and had them run 22 miles at a healthy clip of 8 mph. Half the dogs were anesthetized for five minutes while researchers took small muscle biopsies from their legs; the other half were measured for insulin sensitivity using catheters.
By calculating the metabolic stress on the muscles again in September and November — when the dogs are not in shape after a summer of inactivity — Davis hopes to understand how the cells are reacting under different physical conditions.
Davis' research has drawn the attention of at least one animal rights group that opposes experimentation.
"Ideally, Mr. Davis would work with human athletes and human cells, for direct relevance to our own species," says Kathy Guillermo of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Davis counters that dogs share more DNA with humans than other, smaller mammals such as rats and mice. "There is a greater likelihood that something you discover in dogs will be directly relevant to humans," he says.
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