Giant Anteater Diagnosed With Diabetes Gifted Device Used By Humans

We often think about diabetes as being a human disease, but the fact is, many animals may suffer from similar problems.

This includes a giant anteater named Nala. Out of all of the giant anteaters in the world, Nala is the first and only one (so far) to be diagnosed with diabetes.

They started to recognize that she had a problem when she was losing weight, even though she was fed the same amount and type of food as the other giant anteaters. Stephanie Mota, a veterinary surgeon at the Edinburg zoo, said that it allowed them to see that something was wrong.

In a press release from the zoo, Mota said: “We carried out a full health check under general anaesthetic, running lots of tests and found that Nala has type one diabetes.”

Since this was uncharted territory, they weren’t exactly sure what to do for this animal. They knew that she needed insulin, which is something they provide for humans when they have diabetes through insulin pumps or injections but they didn’t have the experience to know what to do for an anteater.

Fortunately, they had a plan and Mota described it, saying: “Our keepers did an amazing job quickly training Nala to take an insulin injection every day but the challenge for us was how to continuously monitor her blood glucose levels to ensure she was receiving the perfect dose. Taking blood daily was not an option.”

That is when they decided to equip Nala with a wearable glucose monitor, as you can see in the Tweet below:

https://twitter.com/EdinburghZoo/status/1542085578992324608

The monitor was donated by Dexcom, a leader in the technological field. During one of the training sessions, they applied it to Nala and now they can check her glucose levels through a remote application.

Mota said that this is more than just an experiment, Nala was the perfect option for the test. She said: “Due to her lovely personality, Nala is the ideal candidate for this technology. [This] helps us, and her amazing team of keepers, manage her condition in the best possible way.”