From:
sukiec@optonline.net
Date: 2004-05-28 18:03:22 UTC
Subject: Re: [ferrethealth]was Mold/prevention ques
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <4195578.1085767402337.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>
Author wrote:
> Think about that same question in human's. Today it seems everything causes
> cancer and that makes it far more difficult to prevent. There are some
> natural things that may help. Think of environments where these animals had
> come from, how they lived in their light cycles, etc. May not be ceratin
> but the closest you can match how they lived years ago the fewer problems
> you might see. Just a theory. And don't have time to get into a back and
> forth discussion. Food For Thought. I am working with some different more
> natural things to help keep the environment healthier and over time will see
> if it helps. All the best.
> Dr. Sue
That's a part of Evolutionary Medicine/Darwinian Medicine! Neat field; it was pretty well created by George C. Williams and Randolph M. Nesse over ten years ago., and thier books on the topic are recommended reading.
This is the viewpoint which has led to several areas on inquiry in relation to ferrets One is the possible importance of keeping starch and sugar intakes very low for the vast majority of ferrets to try to reduce insulinoma risk. Another (coupled with studies on the functions of melatonin which the body produces itself in DARKNESS but stops producing with light exposure) goes into exposure to too much light possibly helping set the stage for hormonal growths and for hormonal malignancies -- and this appears to be panning out well in adrenal growth studies. Ferrets are descended from burrow dwelling animals who were most active outside at crepuscular times (low light times of dawn and dusk) so they may be even worse at dealing with too much light than creatures which evolved with a lot of light exposure light like most primates. Darkness -- real darkness not dimness -- for a number of hours every day may be a very effective preventative.
I can tell you from experience that we have usually provided a lot of deep darkness, and have had very few early adrenal growths (2 in almost 23 years), and have had a rate of only about 1/3 of our ferrets getting adrenal growths ever in life -- most in old age (and remember that most of our's heave been necropsied with biopsies). On the other side of the coin, I know someone who works nights at home and almost all of her ferrets have already had adrenal growths (most when young) and even her dogs had have adrenal growths. She is looking into blackout curtains. I don't know if this fabric is safe our would need to be enclosed in a pocket curtain but it is now affordable and can be found from many places by using http://www.google.com and probably also other search engines.