Dolphins Use Diabetes-Like State to Control Blood Sugar

Here's a neat dolphin trick that doesn't involve jumping through hoops. While dolphins sleep overnight (with half their brains and one eye at a time), they begin to show signs of the kind of insulin resistance that marks type 2 diabetes in humans. But when they wake up and have their breakfast, they switch back to their normal state. A research team led by Stephanie Venn-Watson announced the findings at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Diego, and said that dolphins' apparent ability to switch insulin resistance on and off could lead to better understanding of the disease in humans. Insulin helps people control their levels of blood sugar, and the resistance to it inherent in type 2 diabetes means those levels can get way too high. The dolphins, though, switch on this temporary insulin resistance to their advantage, boosting blood sugar levels overnight.