From:
Sukie Crandall
Date: 2001-04-05 15:39:00 UTC
Subject: Re: Pancreatic Disease (and regional differences)
Regina wrote:
>Although I fully agree with what Meg says here, I would like to point out
>that not giving sweets to your ferret doesn't guarantee no insulinoma. Wow,
>that was a bunch of negatives... My case in point is that my ferret Amelia
>has never been given sweet treats, but at a little over 6 she developed
>signs of insulinoma and was subsequently diagnosed with it (her initial
>glucose reading was 47, and now she's stabilized in the low 70s with
>pediapred).
Yes, Jumpstart has always had a dislike of sweet things, but that
didn't protect him. *IF* sweets play into causation at all, it might
be that they merely act in conjunction with a possible genetic
predilection to insulinoma which may be able also to act alone.
(Yes, "if", "possibly", etc. -- Hey, the limitations of hypotheses
have to just be accepted while folks put money into research to learn
more.)
Sometimes I think that some of us just beat the odds a bit here or there.
It's like us not having furballs for about 19 years; we are taking
precautions in case the bedding change is a culprit, but maybe we
just were lucky for 19 years or unlucky recently. Happens. We each
do what we can and at times many of us have found real improvements,
but sometimes we are just temporarily beating the odds, though we
have no way to know that.
When I read things like Amy's mention of ferrets in Australia with
undiagnosed, or untreated adrenal disease, and insulinoma I can't
help but remember how it was only 10 to 15 years ago when in almost
all of the U.S. these diseases went undiagnosed and untreated because
neither vets nor owners recognized them. Have to wonder if U.S. vets
used to such diseases looked a random sample of ferrets in other
countries just how many cases they would spot. In contrast, have to
wonder if vets from some of the other areas would notice things like
ovarian tumors more rapidly than U.S. vets who are less used to them.