Medical Significance
Sand rats can easily acquire diabetes mellitus when they are fed a normal rodent diet of grains. Therefore they have been used as an animal model for studies on diabetes. Because they are diurnal, they are also used as models for human seasonal affective disorder.
The presence of sand rats in North Africa and the Middle East is of healthcare importance, as this species can harbor the parasite which causes leishmaniasis in humans.
These animals have been studied extensively for their remarkably efficient kidneys: they can produce very concentrated urine which enables them to eat halophyte plants and survive extreme heat and lack of water in their desert habitat.
Read more about this topic: Sand Rat
Famous quotes containing the words medical and/or significance:
“There may perhaps be a new generation of doctors horrified by lacerations, infections, women who have douched with kitchen cleanser. What an irony it would be if fanatics continued to kill and yet it was the apathy and silence of the medical profession that most wounded the ability to provide what is, after all, a medical procedure.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)