Tony wrote: >In my opinion ferrets that do not get a regular amount of complete >darkness and ferrets that are altered do get adrenal disease which I >have not seen in intact ferrets and where ferrets are kept in naturale >light, I have put this theory forward on several occasions and have >just been laughed down by so called experts I don't know why anyone would laugh you down for that. Perhaps people did not follow and needed more steps explained? The LH aspect is an elegant solution with more and more studies supporting it over the years. Yet I do understand that you have been laughed down over it. When I first posted to the FML ages ago about the early human epidemiological studies on reduced rates of multiple hormonal malignancies in those who have forms of blindness that prevent light exposure from reducing melatonin output, I had folks here telling me that I was bonkers, both publicly and privately, for wondering it that might play into adrenal disease. One of them stopped when I supplied him with some journal articles he could look up. At that point I was not aware of the LH aspect, nor of the FSH aspect (with the same triggers) which is due further research, but as time went on I learned, just as we all do. (Learning from hard data enriches and sometimes alters opinions. That is what data are for -- to know rather than guess. Getting answers with hard data behind them is always cool, whether those answers agree with any person's prior stance or not, because hard answers save ferrets.) Nor were you and I alone. Dr. Judi Bell wanted to do a study quite some time ago into melatonin production reduction and early neutering as a potentially potent combination adrenal growth trigger, but the grant organization she approached was unable to follow the argument at that early stage in the knowledge. Now it looks like she has been vindicated. One important note: this differs from there being pituitary disease as the cause; that gland is just caught in a situation where nothing can supply the hormonal feedback to tell it to shut up when the gonads are gone, or when the gonads fail to function in that regard. People who want to can follow many notes about the series of work over the years into parts of this in the FML and FHL archives. It has been pointed out that prevention data is still under investigation by some researchers -- degrees of rigor discussion -- an interesting topic, and I am honored to be in a private conversation which *MIGHT* result in further posting, either carried by me or sent by one or two researchers. (I don't know how that conversation will evolve because that is not my choice for obvious reasons since I am learning here, too.) As a cause of adrenal growths the persistent over production of LH is downright elegant. It is the sort of thing that makes a person step back and go, "Woooooooooooooowwwwwww!". -- Sukie (not a vet, and not speaking for any of the below in my private posts) Recommended health resources to help ferrets and the people who love them: Ferret Health List http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ferrethealth FHL Archives http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ AFIP Ferret Pathology http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html Miamiferrets http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/ International Ferret Congress Critical References http://www.ferretcongress.org [Posted in FML issue 5215]