Amy, please, notice also that the animals from the pet store origin would very likely have had far more exposure to infectious agents which could easily be precursors to a much later health problem (also true of shelter animals of all types -- they just are in situations which expose them to more illnesses, including human- or other pet-borne ones), they might have been sedated at a young age for transit, they had what was probably a much more stressful environment (all those new faces, pokey fingers, barking dogs, etc.) which could alone or in combination with something like a neuter be associated with hormonal perturbation, and so on. That said, your results are very intriguing and could help direct folks to what sorts of thing should be investigated formally; maybe you will be involved then, too(?). I find I keep going back to Mike Dutton saying that in his practise he thinks he's run across as many as four types of adrenal disease. It may be that these have to be better differentiated before more can be known since the differences might muddy studies but the tools are not yet in place to do that (though separation might not be needed). Sukie [Posted in FML issue 1965]