From:
sukieferret
Date: 2002-05-29 19:57:00 UTC
Subject: Re: Insulinoma Surgery
> What he said was more like insulinoma cells don't
> react to sugar like normal insulin producing cells do so giving
> some complex sugars can help hold the sugar level up.
There are a lot of hypotheses about insulinoma. One has been
to avoid sugars to avoid yo-yoing of blood sugars. I don't know if
anyone has ever studied to see if that actually happens to
signicant levels in ferrets with early insulinoma. In early
insulinoma there is still a large amount of active normal
pancreatic tissue present.
Still, it does have to be remembered that the meds we give help
by upping blood glucose levels, so that means there is a lot
unknown in realtion to when, by which routes, in what amounts,
etc. sugars may pose problems or not pose problems.
We give sugars here these days because Warp has an
advanced case so the chances that she'd yo-yo are pretty non-
existant, and it is getting her extra quality time. For her it is
making a great difference and I have heard from some people
who are getting ferrrets they expected to put down extra quality
time by also trying this. Given that in early cases most of the
pancreas is going to have normal tissue, I don't think that we'd
do it then routinely till more in known, but that's just as a
precautionary approach not as one based on anything firm.
Sometimes there is confusion between hypotheses and actual
knowledge. Hypotheses may have what seem like firm reasons
to be possible, but they may or may not pan out. I think that often
it's hard to learn what is a hypothesis and what is based on
actual studies.