From:
sukiec@optonline.com
Date: 2003-01-07 20:21:29 UTC
Subject: RE: Ferrets and adrenal neoplasms-lighting
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <9797031.1041970889692.JavaMail.root@scandium>
Well, you know, endocrinology is very complex, the assorted components interact, and some can be easily changed by the body from one to another (as happens with at least some of the estrogens and androgens which can also be produced by locations other than the gonad or adrenals, including fat for at least one if what I have read is correct or my memory isn't playing tricks on me. Many of these perform multiple functions: for instance the last time i read the number of found functions for the estogens was in the three figures.
The meltonin hypothesis (which is basically the same as the darkness hyppthesis since the body produces melatonin in darkness and even a little bit of light -- especially blue or green light -- invovles the interaction of melatonin.
Our personal experience is that we do still encounter adrenal neoplasias when we have provided true darkness (which we continue to do) but that the only early adrenal we personally encountered was during a hiatus when we stopped doing that. We also haven't had any malignant adrenals during the time while we have provided a lot of true darkness. Now, do take into account that this is merely what we have encountered and it therefore is not a controlled or statistically significatn sample, so conclusion can not be drawn.
We're actually planning to try late neuters conbined with a lot of true darkness in the future. We used darkness over 10 years ago after ryars of not taking such precautions (maybe 15?) when a lot of the early melatonin work in humans was pubished, then we stopped for a while but I can't recall how long except that we actually had an early case then, and returned to it maybe 3 years ago. During the early years we had only one ferret with an adrenal neoplasia, and it was lympho. During the years since then, with darkness or without we have had some with later life (after age 6) benign adrenal neoplasias.
I don't personally consider this to be a simple problem, partly from the way that it was so rarely mentioned 20 years ago even with early neuters, partly because the same genetic lines that aren't getting it in parts of Europe are getting it here, partly because other parts of Europe are getting a number of ferrets with adrenal neoplasia, partly because of the way it presented in part of Australia (though these reports conflict with each other sometimes so they confuse me), parlty because early cases began being reported in large numbers substantially later than late age cases were reported in the U.S., etc.
Perhaps more than one thing interacts. Perhaps adrenal neoplasia is not an uncommon old age problem but it just under diagnosed in some places while something might be triggering more early cases elsewhere. Perhaps when some factors are present and yet one more happens then early cases present, or maybe some are just more prone to early cases genetically. Maybe a factor we haven't discussed is involved.
I don't know. No one does YET. We'll know more once enough research is done, and enough research will perhaps be done when enough ferret people donate to the professional research groups doing it or to veterinary research umbrella groups. Till then we will move more slowly toward getting the data needed.