In the last year the data relating to cancer incidences have worsened in a rather critical way, in fact in 2022 almost 400 thousand new diagnoses were made, a discovery however could reverse the trend.
Cancer is still a very difficult disease to eradicate and, although research is making great strides in understanding the formation of cancer cells, prevention remains one of the most important factors to take into consideration.
The increase in the incidence of tumors and their mortality are also a result caused by the pandemic, a period in which, due to the health emergency, many types of diagnostic tests have been canceled and blocked, which are useful precisely for identifying any diseases or problematic.
Fortunately, the study and research have continued and over the years have led to infinitely useful discoveries from a medical point of view, a few months ago, for example, the experts understood how the metastasis process takes place and on January 25th, it was published a new study that could greatly help in identifying cancer cells early.
The discoveries published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B have demonstrated how it is possible, for a specific insect, to identify the odor of the diseased cells present in the urine of laboratory mice, which were affected by a type of tumor which generally it affects the breasts of women, which unfortunately represent a good third of cancer diagnoses.
Because ants could save your life
As strange as it is to hear, ants have played a fundamental role in research, in fact it is thanks to them and their training that in the future it will be possible to have accurate, early and above all much cheaper diagnoses than the procedures currently in use in the medical field.
Researchers have managed to train ants to distinguish the odor between the urine of healthy mice from those affected by cancer, all using a simple compound of water and sugar as a reward and as an indicator to associate the reward with the smell of the cells infected. This extensive training resulted in the ants hovering 20% more time closer to the samples that identified cancer-stricken mice.
Even if the study and the discoveries are still only related to tumor samples and laboratory-grown mice, the possibility of asking for help from ants to proceed quickly with the diagnosis of diseases opens up many possibilities for the future and for people’s health.