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News
Bottlenose dolphins may provide clues to preventing and treating type 2 diabetes in humans
Clinical Investigations
Dolphins appear to have a genetic fasting switch that readily turns a diabetes-like metabolism on and off. Dr. Stephanie Venn-Watson, Director of Clinical Research, presented the bottlenose dolphin as an important, natural, and long-lived model for type 2 diabetes in humans at the 147th annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Diego, California. International media coverage of the Foundation's support for this Navy-funded research included National Public Radio's Science Friday, National Geographic, Science Magazine, BBC, and CBS. See our press release for more information.
The Foundation is currently looking for research collaborations and funding, not only to benefit dolphin health, but to further efforts to prevent, treat, and even cure type 2 diabetes in humans. If you are a diabetes researcher, research funder, or would like to make a donation, please contact us at diabetes@nmmpfoundation.org.
Hearing tests for wild marine mammals
Bioacoustics
Dr. Dorian Houser, Director of Biological and Bioacoustic Research, has implemented Navy technology to test hearing of wild marine mammals. Dr. Houser played an integral part of a Navy-supported team that originally developed this technology to conduct hearing tests of Navy dolphins and sea lions. These hearing tests can now be conducted on stranded cetaceans and on pinnipeds. This technology is currently being used by stranding networks to test the hearing of stranded cetaceans.
Dolphins can drink sea water
Physiology and Osmoregulation
The Foundation recently published an article in the Journal of Comparative Physiology-B demonstrating that dolphins likely drink small amounts of sea water routinely. Better understanding how a mammal can drink seawater without ill side effects may have big benefits for humans in the future.
Low citrate in urine may be a risk factor for kidney stones in dolphins
Medicine
Leading a national and multidisciplinary team of marine mammal experts, the Foundation has discovered that low levels of citrate in the urine (also called hypocitratura) may be a risk factor for kidney stones in dolphins. Similar associations between hypocitraturia and kidney stones have been found in people. This Navy-funded research has helped identify treatments for this disease in dolphins, and may also reveal why some dolphins and people have low citrate in their urine. An article summarizing this research will soon be published in the Journal of Comparative Medicine.
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