From:
"sukiedaviscrandall"
Date: 2010-03-17 17:56:35 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] Re: Health Question
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
For whatever reason or reasons Karen has had many
ferrets experience adrenal disease with many of those
experiencing it at a young age.
Our experience in our decades with ferrets has been
vastly different, but also is reliable because not only
are we careful with testing, but for a very long time
our ferrets were used to train vets and vet techs in
necropsies with pathology done afterward. We've
had a quite consistent average number of ferrets with
adrenal disease at some point in their lifetimes
through the years until death, typically anywhere from
30% to 33%. That includes one who had hidden adrenal
disease that was found after death.
Personally, I think that our being careful to allow access
to places with pretty near complete darkness helps (and
have noticed that the ones least likely to utilize that have
tended to be more likely to get adrenal disease, and that
when my health problems in the past prevented use of
places for darkness that were hard to access we had spates
of ferrets with adrenal disease about 3 years afterward. We
also have yellow lace curtains to reduce the blue and green
light components from window light in the day (and I am
thinking about getting red to make what gets through more
amber if I can find that, and we try to cover the blue and
green equipment lights when we can, and use a cage cover
and dark night curtains, but we do need access to that room
for other things because we live in a small condo so can not
give them their own dedicated area with full darkness starting
at dusk. People I know who have done that have often spoken
of far better rates than we have personally.
Another thing which people with better success at avoiding
adrenal disease than our about 1/3 with it, and better success
at avoiding insulinoma and other pancreatic diseases than our
about 20% with those are people who have mentioned being
able to have a large location (sometimes more than one room)
with many activities that is dedicated to the ferrets so that as
well as darkness they also encourage a large amount of exercise.
In addition, they play many times each day with their ferrets in
very active ways. (For reducing rates of pancreatic diseases this
and avoiding obesity mesh with the results of studies on cats,
albeit those are other pancreatic diseases)
Almost all of the ones we have had get adrenal disease have
been over 5 years of age at onset, and we do test whenever
there is a chance that adrenal disease may be present, and
have received back many negative TN Panels through the
years. Many of those we've also tried Lupron on AFTER the
TN Panel blood was drawn just to be extra careful in case
whatever had us concerned was adrenal disease, because it
was unlikely to hurt and then we could also proceed looking
for alternative causes (dermal response to pollen allergies in
one on an annual basis (and we even appear to know which
pollen it is now and watch the pollen counts to treat, vaginal
infections in maybe 3, etc).
Why darkness? Because adrenal disease is caused by too high
levels of Follicle Stimulating Hormone, and to a lower extent too
high levels of Luteinizing Hormone could play a part. One
thing that causes the body to produce more FSH is if the
body is already producing too LOW levels of melatonin.
***Melatonin is produced by the body in response to darkness.***
The longer the darkness and the more complete it is then the
more melatonin is produced. It is a very ancient hormone
which is involved in a huger number of bodily functions from
fighting malignancies and diseases, to maintaining hormonal
balances, to keeping marrow healthy and more.
You can see that too much light exposure reduces melatonin
production and that in turn increases the production of
FSH and LH. Too little melatonin could reduce health in other
ways as well.
Not all light wavelengths are equal. Amber (a brownish-orange
or deep gold color) is the least disruptive wavelength. That is
why we have amber lights in the ferret room for when lights
need to be on (except when my husband has to video conference).
Blue is the most disruptive and green is the second most disruptive
of the wavelengths.
Keep in mind that the original domesticated ferrets are
considered to be descended from European and Steepe
Polecats about 2,500 years ago, or perhaps a now extinct
relative, then through the millenia were bred with first two
periodically. Polecats live typically in purloined burrows,
but sometimes in more accessible places like nooks in barns.
Burrows are very dark inside because of all of their twists and
turns. It is common for them to be completely dark once
you reach the nesting locations. In addition, their peak time
of activity is crepuscular, this means low light times like
dawn and dusk, so for their tens of millions of years (including
ancestors) with this body form that is a burrow-user's and
burrow-hunter's form the chances are that there was little
light exposure, meaning that natural melatonin production
can be disrupted more easily than for diurnal creatures like
humans since we have a longer past with more light exposure.
Two other indicators of long low light and darkness pasts are
that in studies of ferrets they have been found to see well in
extremely low light levels (including in red light for many),
and like dogs they appear to too easily get too much Vitamin D.
(The "sunshine vitamin", which is actually a hormone, and of which
a huge portion of American humans currently have too little for
optimum health.) In ferrets and dogs too much D can cause
hypercalcemia and perhaps other problems. (Unlike humans ferrets
are descended from animals who ate liver very, very regularly and
they deal with higher levels of Vitamin A than humans safely do, BTW.)
Also different these days is the level of nighttime light pollution
in much of the world and you can read about that if you search
the archives
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
for posts containing the word
scotobiology
and use the links.
So, keep in mind that households ***differ widely*** for both rate of
adrenal disease and for onset ages.
------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
ferrethealth-digest@yahoogroups.com
ferrethealth-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
ferrethealth-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/