I like a lot of what you wrote, Sukie. I don't see as strong a genetic connection as many people do, nor do I necessarily believe the "early neutering" theory--especially because early neutering doesn't have negative health effects in other species. What I have seen--and there are no numbers to back this up, this is just an observation, an intuition--is that adrenal disease, early and otherwise, is much more common in ferrets from neglectful homes. We have seen a few early adrenals, and every one of them was from a home that kept them in tiny rabbit cages lined with shavings, fed them almost nothing, kept them in basements, etc, etc. In other words, these ferrets got little to no exercise, inadequate nutrition, no natural light, and probably drank unclean water--or went without. What's surprising is that they were alive. One ferret from this category had a sister with her--who had insulinoma and died. They were very young, probably less than a year, no more than 1.5 (judging by teeth). The adrenal case's vulva was the size of my thumb. We have yet to see an early adrenal tumor in an otherwise healthy and well-cared-for ferret. Actually, most of the age-related adrenal cases we've seen have also been ferrets in neglectful homes, though not all of them. So--if we're seeing more early adrenals, is this related to more awareness of neglect, more ferrets turned in to shelters rather than left to die? Or is there something that is common in the way neglected ferrets are kept that is also becoming more common in the way many pet ferrets are kept? There are age-related conditions in humans, such as diabetes and blood sugar problems, that can appear much earlier--and *most* of the time it appears earlier because of bad eating habits, lack of exercise, or a number of other issues. (No insult intended for those with diabetes, either type!) Another example is heart disease, something humans are fairly prone to--and we all know what increases *that* risk factor. So, for ferrets, it's adrenal tumors and insulinomas, I'd say, with age increasing the tumor risk overall--and the more risk of tumors, the higher the chance of cancer. My guess would be that some environmental factor (or combination of them) accelerates the normal disease process--so that a ferret that might normally develop adrenal tumors at age 7 will develop them at age 2. I personally suspect it's a combination of factors, including diet and exercise at the very least, and probably quite a few more. Any other ideas? Jen and the Crazy Business Check out the updated web page! http://home.maine.rr.com/tesseract [Posted in FML issue 3099]