Dolphins can actually "turn on" diabetes and turn it off again depending upon whether there’s a lot of food available to them or very little, according to new research. The discovery of the mammals’ unique ability to switch in and out of having the disorder may one day help find treatments and a cure for diabetes in people.

Researchers think the dolphins’ habit of switching in and out of diabetes is due to a need to keep blood sugar levels elevated in order to nourish the animal's large brain. It may be an ability humans once had, too. Some 23.6 million Americans have diabetes, according to Pam Cooper, spokesperson for the American Diabetes Association, and 90% of these have Type 2 diabetes. About one in three diabetics don’t know they have the disorder, which contributes to more than 200,000 deaths annually in the United States.

“Diabetes now accounts for 5% of human deaths globally,” veterinary epidemiologist Dr. Stephanie Venn-Watson, director of clinical research at the National Marine Mammal Foundation in San Diego, said. “It is our hope that this discovery can lead to novel ways to prevent, treat and maybe even cure diabetes in humans.”

Venn-Watson, who discovered the dolphins’ ability while doing research off the coast of San Diego, discussed her findings at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She took routine blood samples from the mammals and saw that they were able to induce Type 2 diabetes while fasting and yet switch off the diabetes when they found food.

The ability could date back to when dolphins went from being land animals to sea animals 55 million years ago and had to start eating a diet of protein in the form of fish.

There is some evidence that humans could have done this, too, when they also relied on a protein-rich diet during the last ice age because carbohydrates were frozen, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Though humans’ ability to switch off diabetes is now “dormant,” Venn-Watson says evidence exists that a human fasting gene does in fact exist.

“Maybe this is a smoking gun for a key point to control diabetes in humans,” she told the Daily Telegraph. “Maybe this is a vestige of something dormant that could be awakened and used as a therapy or cure.”

Dr. Tracy L. Breen, clinical director of the Mount Sinai Diabetes Center at Mount Sinai Medical Center, said the dolphin research may not help Americans with diabetes within the next few years, but that it sounded promising.

“We can’t switch our genetic code back, but if this research helps us understand how our bodies process and store energy, it could one day help us avoid diabetes,” she says. “Unlike dolphins, we live in a society where there is too much food and not enough physical movement. Still, this research could have benefits in the long range.”

The dolphins’ amazing ability to turn on and off diabetes may have something to do with the chemicals that surround their genes, says Dr. Gerald Bernstein, director of the Diabetes Management Program at the Friedman Diabetes Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center.

“These chemicals may actually change the dolphins’ genes,” he says. “Hopefully this research will provide an open door to biologists who might be able to find a way to turn off the mechanism that produces diabetes in people.”

Not everyone is happy about the prospect of using dolphins to research a cure for diabetes in humans.

“It is a grave concern that dolphins might be used in biomedical research,” Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society spokesman Danny Groves told the Daily Telegraph.

“Dolphins are intelligent and sophisticated animals which are vulnerable to stress and suffering when confined and removed from their natural environment and societies.”