From:
sukiec@optonline.net
Date: 2004-12-17 17:13:54 UTC
Subject: RE: [ferrethealth] Re:Insulinomas and sugar
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <3350717.1103303634446.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>
> >A nutritional approach to the prevention of insulinomas in the pet ferre=
t (in the
> >Journal of exotic mammal medicine & surgery) ...
> >(JEMM&S, volume 2.2, Dec 2004, By Dr Mark Finkler)
You know, many years ago all that was around was high starch food. Yet, in=
sulinoma was very rare. Heck, we fed Meow Mix and only had one ferret with=
any pancreatic growth and her's was lympho during a clump, and only one wi=
th an adrenal growth and his was lympho in the same clump. No joke. That =
was pretty well the norm for what was fed and what was seen because when yo=
u go back over 20 years ago you get to points where nothing better in the w=
ay of food was available so that's all we had. =
Now, I am NOT saying that these are good foods. What I am saying is that w=
e had a few albinos, a lot of standards in the same colorations as wild pol=
ecats, and on very rare ocassion someone would have one with the clean and =
complete white bibs and mitts (no extraneous spotting) which have a complt=
ely different genetic cause than the splotchy neural crest genetic variant =
ones which are so common these days. They were tough animals, healthy anim=
als.
Yes, our ferrets tended to be quite healthy back then, healthier than now i=
f you are going to look at both life span mode and the life span mean we en=
countered. Nor am I alone in noticing that among those of us in the U.S. w=
ith ferrets who have had ferrets for at least 20 years.
I DO think that our current population is more geneticly vulnerable now tha=
n it had been. Also, I do think that we have to take more precautions now =
because of that.
I really wish that the funding had come through for those two studies into =
genetic vulnerabilites like MEN genetics (multiple endocrinological neoplas=
ia genetics) and into the KIT oncogene. Classical geneticist, Dr. Brett Mi=
ddleton, has mentioned here and in Ferret-Genetics that KIT looks to better=
fit a cause of many of our blaze, panda and splotchy ferrets than Waardenb=
urg, but KIT carries its own possible added neoplasia rate baggage since it=
is an oncogene. (Also, there is some very new work which indicates that t=
here might be an increased vulnerability to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy ass=
ociated cardiac neural crest genetic variations (which can show neural cres=
t genetic types of markings):
"The Homeobox Gene Lbx1 Specifies a Subpopulation of Cardiac Neural
Crest Necessary for Normal Heart Development" =
Konstanze Sch=E4fer, Petra Neuhaus, Julia Kruse, Thomas Braun =
which goes beyond the previously existing studies that I've seen on topics =
like the effect of cardiac neural crest mutations on cardio-vascular malfor=
mations and retention of fetal blood vessels. It includes: =
>Interestingly, in humans there have been reports about hypertrophic
>cardiomyopathy in association with lentiginosis as manifested in the
>leopard syndrome and other disorders of the neural crest tissue
>further emphasizing the potential role of neural crest in the
>development of a hyperplastic or hypertrophic heart disease.
I've only just been told of this study last night by an Italian molecular g=
eneticist who is studying aspects of MEN in humans, so I'd like to know mor=
e about the "other disorders" part since I have not heard of or seen Leopar=
d (which has a hyper-pigmentation in raised spots presentation) in ferrets.=
Anyway, I know that most folks in the U.S. haven't had ferrets until AFTER =
there was rampant selective breeding for fancies which totally changed the =
population distribution in a radical fashion from almost no ferrets having =
any splotching at all or having any unsual colorations to now seeing those =
not only commonly but often predominantly when a person looks in stores. T=
here was a lot that was different then besides having trouble telling sleep=
ing ferrets apart from one another and part of that was that the ferrets di=
d have more robust health and did not get as many endocrinological problems=
as the current ones do, and the few who did get them got them older than t=
he age of 5 years.
We can only work with what we've got now, though... So, I do think that pr=
ecautions are more important now than then.
(BTW, since I know that it is the fashion to blame everything on farms I'd =
better point out that the first to promote fancies were one mid-sized farm =
that is not often mentioned but more so a number of private breeders -- not=
all private breeders and some who began found themselves so unhappy with t=
he health results that they went back to standards only or standards plus =
a few specific types of fancies who commonly live to late in the 7th years =
or nicely above that with few health problem in their records.)
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