Published in DVM NEWSMAGAZINE.
Aug 31, 2009
Fort Collins, Colo. -- Could your kitchen hold the cure to feline cancer? Possibly.
A simple compound derived from a spice found in many kitchens may have the ability to stop cancer cells from growing in cats, researchers say. Curcumin, a compound in turmeric, appears to stop the growth of cancer in laboratory cell tests.
Turmeric is an herb related to ginger that is often used in Indian cuisine, such as curries, in canned beverages, baked products, dairy products and home-canned products such as pickles. It also is used for its mustard color in condiments and as a dye.
While researchers know that curcumin has anti-cancer properties, it is metabolized through the liver in most animals and humans in a way that renders it ineffective against cancer cells in the body. However, oncologists at Colorado State University’s Animal Cancer Center are conducting laboratory tests on cancer cells to determine if a therapeutic level of the spice can be identified for felines.
“Dogs, humans and other mammals have a liver that is very effective at metabolizing many compounds, but cats don’t metabolize certain drugs as well because they have a unique liver,” said Dr. Doug Thamm, a veterinary oncologist who is leading the project.
“The unique feline liver means that some drugs that are not toxic to dogs or humans may be toxic to cats. In this case, dog and human liver enzymes turn off the beneficial effects of curcumin against cancer, but because feline livers function differently, the benefits may not be completely lost.”
Monday, August 31, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Fighting Ear Disease: from Veterinary Practice News!
Most veterinary clients don’t realize that veterinary dermatologists are also otology experts. Owners of Cavalier King Charles spaniels may be most educated on that front.
“Primary secretory otitis media is a primary disease of the middle ear found most commonly in Cavalier King Charles spaniels,” says Lynette Cole, DVM, Dipl. ACVD, of Ohio State University. “The condition causes head, neck and ear scratching as well as neurologic facial drooping and balance problems. The condition is diagnosed with an X-ray, CT scan or MRI.”
Dr. Cole is conducting a clinical study of 74 Cavalier King Charles spaniels to test the use of a mucolytic drug that could prevent recurrence of middle ear infections in the breed. Currently, the treatment consists of making an incision in the pars tensa, draining and flushing, but the condition tends to recur.
“We think the disease is caused by a dysfunction of the Eustachian tube prohibiting normal draining from occurring,” Cole says.
“Veterinarians are not taught a procedure to put tubes in animals’ ears to relieve building pressure in the ear, as commonly performed in the ears of children with the same condition. Since dogs’ ear canals are vertical and horizontal, it really poses a problem, but I am working on a way to perform the procedure.”
“Primary secretory otitis media is a primary disease of the middle ear found most commonly in Cavalier King Charles spaniels,” says Lynette Cole, DVM, Dipl. ACVD, of Ohio State University. “The condition causes head, neck and ear scratching as well as neurologic facial drooping and balance problems. The condition is diagnosed with an X-ray, CT scan or MRI.”
Dr. Cole is conducting a clinical study of 74 Cavalier King Charles spaniels to test the use of a mucolytic drug that could prevent recurrence of middle ear infections in the breed. Currently, the treatment consists of making an incision in the pars tensa, draining and flushing, but the condition tends to recur.
“We think the disease is caused by a dysfunction of the Eustachian tube prohibiting normal draining from occurring,” Cole says.
“Veterinarians are not taught a procedure to put tubes in animals’ ears to relieve building pressure in the ear, as commonly performed in the ears of children with the same condition. Since dogs’ ear canals are vertical and horizontal, it really poses a problem, but I am working on a way to perform the procedure.”
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
Puppies behind bars - as seen and heard on NPR!
Of all the unlikely names for a nonprofit group, there may be none unlikelier than Puppies Behind Bars. But it's not what you might think. The program teams puppies up with prison inmates — who live with and train the puppies to become bomb-sniffing dogs, or service dogs for wounded vets. The program began at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in 1997. Now Puppies Behind Bars is working in six correctional facilities, and nearly 500 dogs have been trained in the program.
Gloria Gilbert Stoga, the nonprofit's founder and president, joins Fresh Air guest host Dave Davies for a conversation about Puppies Behind Bars and the people it serves. Among them are Nora Moran, a former inmate who was part of the program; after she was released in January 2008, she took a job with Puppies Behind Bars. Also joining the conversation is former Marine Cpl. Paul Bang-Knudsen. He was awarded a Purple Heart after an ambush in Iraq; he suffered multiple gunshot and shrapnel injuries and now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. His dog, Samba — one of the first 10 dogs to graduate from the veterans companion animal program at Puppies Behind Bars — helps him get through the day, making him feel safe and alerting him to any potential surprises.
Gloria Gilbert Stoga, the nonprofit's founder and president, joins Fresh Air guest host Dave Davies for a conversation about Puppies Behind Bars and the people it serves. Among them are Nora Moran, a former inmate who was part of the program; after she was released in January 2008, she took a job with Puppies Behind Bars. Also joining the conversation is former Marine Cpl. Paul Bang-Knudsen. He was awarded a Purple Heart after an ambush in Iraq; he suffered multiple gunshot and shrapnel injuries and now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. His dog, Samba — one of the first 10 dogs to graduate from the veterans companion animal program at Puppies Behind Bars — helps him get through the day, making him feel safe and alerting him to any potential surprises.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Golden Retriever new disease: sensory ataxia neuropathy!
Uppsala, Sweden -- A new study conducted by researchers from three international universities concluded that an inherited neurological disorder affecting Golden Retrievers is caused by a DNA mutation.
Sensory ataxic neuropathy (SAN) is a recently identified disorder that begins affecting Golden Retrievers as puppies, causing them to become uncoordinated and have sensory deficits.
Researchers from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala University and the Karolinska Institute have identified the cause of SAN as a mutation in microchondrial DNA that occurs through maternal inheritance. Specifically, a one-base pair deletion in the mitochondrial tRN-Tyr gene was discovered, with further study revealing the mutation causes mitochondrial dysfunction leading to progressive loss of neurons, according to the study.
About 5 percent of the Swedish Golden Retriever population was found to carry the mutated gene, and screening has been developed to thwart further transmissions, researchers say.
AVMA blasts magazine for 'negative' article about veterinarians
Schaumburg, Ill. -- Dr. Larry Corry, AVMA president, scolds Smart Money magazine in a letter to the editor for an article titled “10 Things Veterinarians Won’t Tell You” (Aug. 7, 2009).
The article fosters “a feeling of mistrust of veterinarians,” Corry says. “Your choice of headline and the wording of subheads throughout the article, combined with an overall negative tone, and the use of innuendo and inflammatory language, are regrettable,” Corry writes. “Veterinarians are compassionate doctors who work extremely hard to provide quality health care at an astonishingly reasonable cost. Contrary to the article's title, communication is the cornerstone of the veterinarian-client-patient relationship.” The article’s subtitles included quips like, “Good thing you love Sparky like a son. His care could cost as much,” “Vaccinating your pet may do more harm than good” and “Surgery is a cinch. It’s the overnight stay you should worry about.”
Corry points out that trust and communication are key to the veterinarian/client relationship and calls out Smart Money for mocking that relationship. “Despite the fact that the scientific community, the American public and even the U.S. General Accounting Office have appraised veterinarians as indispensable experts on both animal and human health, your article fails to accord these doctors that respect,” Corry writes. “Indeed, one can scarcely imagine the backlash Smart Money would feel from both the public and the medical community by running an article entitled ‘10 Ways to Avoid Following a Pediatrician's Advice.’”
Thursday, August 6, 2009
What to do if you think your pet is poisoned
If your pet just ingested something toxic, calm down! While it's very stressful, know that the more calm, cool, and collected you are, the sooner you can seek the correct medical attention. First, get a handle on the situation by following these guidelines:
1) Immediately remove your pet from the area, and make sure no other pets (or kids!) are exposed to this area. Safely remove any remaining poisonous material from their reach.
2) Check to make sure your pet is breathing normally and acting fine otherwise.
3) Collect a sample of the material, along with the packaging, vial, or container, and save it - you will need all that information when you talk to your veterinarian or to a Pet Poison Helpline expert.
4) Do NOT give your dog any milk, food, salt, oil, or any other home remedies! Also, never inducing vomiting without talking to your veterinarian or Pet Poison Helpline - it may actually be detrimental or contraindicated to induce vomiting!
5) Get help. Program your veterinarian phone number, along with an ER vet and Pet Poison Helpline's phone number (1-800-213-6680) in your cell phone so you have immediate access to help.
Keep in mind that the prognosis is always better when a toxicity is reported immediately, so don't wait to see if your pet becomes symptomatic before calling for help. It's always less expensive, and safer for your pet for you to call immediately. Remember that there's a narrow window of time when we can decontaminate (induce vomiting or pump the stomach) in the cases of poisonings!
1) Immediately remove your pet from the area, and make sure no other pets (or kids!) are exposed to this area. Safely remove any remaining poisonous material from their reach.
2) Check to make sure your pet is breathing normally and acting fine otherwise.
3) Collect a sample of the material, along with the packaging, vial, or container, and save it - you will need all that information when you talk to your veterinarian or to a Pet Poison Helpline expert.
4) Do NOT give your dog any milk, food, salt, oil, or any other home remedies! Also, never inducing vomiting without talking to your veterinarian or Pet Poison Helpline - it may actually be detrimental or contraindicated to induce vomiting!
5) Get help. Program your veterinarian phone number, along with an ER vet and Pet Poison Helpline's phone number (1-800-213-6680) in your cell phone so you have immediate access to help.
Keep in mind that the prognosis is always better when a toxicity is reported immediately, so don't wait to see if your pet becomes symptomatic before calling for help. It's always less expensive, and safer for your pet for you to call immediately. Remember that there's a narrow window of time when we can decontaminate (induce vomiting or pump the stomach) in the cases of poisonings!
Research Undermines Dog Domestication Theory
New York Times, August 4, 2009
By NICHOLAS WADE
Few people spend their honeymoon catching and drawing blood from village dogs up and down Africa. But Ryan and Corin Boyko, two anthropologists at the University of California, Davis, chose this way to collect valuable genetic data that is casting a new light on the domestication of dogs.
The opportunity to combine love with science arose when Ryan’s brother Adam Boyko, a biologist at Cornell University, was discussing dog genetics with his professor, Carlos Bustamante. Dr. Bustamante, just back from a visit to Venezuela, remarked on how small the street dogs there were.
The two researchers wondered if the dogs carried a recently discovered gene that downsizes dogs from wolves and is found in all small dog breeds. Dr. Bustamante said the idea could be explored by collecting street dogs from up and down South America. Dr. Boyko, knowing his brother was planning a honeymoon in Africa but lacked the money to go far, proposed that the survey be done in Africa instead. “I paid for half their honeymoon,” Dr. Bustamante said.
Ryan and Corin Boyko collected 223 samples of village dog blood from Egypt, Uganda and Namibia. The small gene question has not yet been assessed, but their samples, reported in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, have called into question a finding on the origin of dog domestication from wolves.
The origin is thought to be East Asia, based on a 2002 survey of both village dogs and breed dogs. But most of the village dogs in that survey came from East Asia, which could have tilted the outcome. The African village dogs turn out to have much the same amount of genetic diversity as those of East Asia. This is puzzling because the origin of a species is usually also the source of greatest genetic diversity.
The Boykos and Dr. Bustamante do not think dogs were domesticated in Africa — there are no wolves in Africa now, apart from the Ethiopian wolf — but they say the origin may not be East Asia. The issue is better addressed by looking just at village dogs, they think, and by excluding European breeds, which are mostly of recent origin.
They are now collecting samples from village dogs throughout the world — Ryan and Corin Boyko are at present catching dogs in New Guinea — in hope of tracing not just the place or places where dogs were first domesticated, but also the travels that dogs then took around the world with their masters.
The lack of any sharp gradient of genetic diversity between East Asian and African village dogs could mean that once domesticated, dogs spread very quickly from their point of origin. Another explanation, Dr. Boyko said, is that they originated at some point halfway between the two regions, like in the Caucasus mountains.
Robert Wayne, a biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the new report “leaves in disarray” the thesis that dogs evolved in East Asia. But they could not have evolved in sub-Saharan Africa, which has no wolves, and “so must have evolved somewhere else, maybe in the Middle East,” Dr. Wayne said.
The solution to the origin of the dog will come from sampling wolves throughout the world as well as village dogs, Dr. Wayne said. A genome-scanning chip, similar to those developed for studying the human genome, has been developed for dogs. Dr. Wayne, working with Dr. Boyko and colleagues, has used the chip to scan wolf genomes. He said they were now working on a report that might resolve the current quandary as to where the first dogs originated.
Correction: August 5, 2009
An article on Tuesday about new research that calls into question the origin of dog domestication from wolves misspelled the surname of a professor at Cornell University who helped direct the research. He is Carlos Bustamante, not Bustamente.
By NICHOLAS WADE
Few people spend their honeymoon catching and drawing blood from village dogs up and down Africa. But Ryan and Corin Boyko, two anthropologists at the University of California, Davis, chose this way to collect valuable genetic data that is casting a new light on the domestication of dogs.
The opportunity to combine love with science arose when Ryan’s brother Adam Boyko, a biologist at Cornell University, was discussing dog genetics with his professor, Carlos Bustamante. Dr. Bustamante, just back from a visit to Venezuela, remarked on how small the street dogs there were.
The two researchers wondered if the dogs carried a recently discovered gene that downsizes dogs from wolves and is found in all small dog breeds. Dr. Bustamante said the idea could be explored by collecting street dogs from up and down South America. Dr. Boyko, knowing his brother was planning a honeymoon in Africa but lacked the money to go far, proposed that the survey be done in Africa instead. “I paid for half their honeymoon,” Dr. Bustamante said.
Ryan and Corin Boyko collected 223 samples of village dog blood from Egypt, Uganda and Namibia. The small gene question has not yet been assessed, but their samples, reported in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, have called into question a finding on the origin of dog domestication from wolves.
The origin is thought to be East Asia, based on a 2002 survey of both village dogs and breed dogs. But most of the village dogs in that survey came from East Asia, which could have tilted the outcome. The African village dogs turn out to have much the same amount of genetic diversity as those of East Asia. This is puzzling because the origin of a species is usually also the source of greatest genetic diversity.
The Boykos and Dr. Bustamante do not think dogs were domesticated in Africa — there are no wolves in Africa now, apart from the Ethiopian wolf — but they say the origin may not be East Asia. The issue is better addressed by looking just at village dogs, they think, and by excluding European breeds, which are mostly of recent origin.
They are now collecting samples from village dogs throughout the world — Ryan and Corin Boyko are at present catching dogs in New Guinea — in hope of tracing not just the place or places where dogs were first domesticated, but also the travels that dogs then took around the world with their masters.
The lack of any sharp gradient of genetic diversity between East Asian and African village dogs could mean that once domesticated, dogs spread very quickly from their point of origin. Another explanation, Dr. Boyko said, is that they originated at some point halfway between the two regions, like in the Caucasus mountains.
Robert Wayne, a biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the new report “leaves in disarray” the thesis that dogs evolved in East Asia. But they could not have evolved in sub-Saharan Africa, which has no wolves, and “so must have evolved somewhere else, maybe in the Middle East,” Dr. Wayne said.
The solution to the origin of the dog will come from sampling wolves throughout the world as well as village dogs, Dr. Wayne said. A genome-scanning chip, similar to those developed for studying the human genome, has been developed for dogs. Dr. Wayne, working with Dr. Boyko and colleagues, has used the chip to scan wolf genomes. He said they were now working on a report that might resolve the current quandary as to where the first dogs originated.
Correction: August 5, 2009
An article on Tuesday about new research that calls into question the origin of dog domestication from wolves misspelled the surname of a professor at Cornell University who helped direct the research. He is Carlos Bustamante, not Bustamente.
Bird ownership...
So, this probably doesn't belong on a DOG blog, but I'm so excited to hear that bird ownership in the US has declined 15.2% between 2001 and 2006 (Source: AVMA US Pet Ownership & Demographics Sourcebook 2007). While this may not sound exciting to you, we vets and naturalists hate seeing birds removed from their natural habitat and forced to live in a cage. Once you go to Central America and see parrots flying in their element, you'd understand...
That said, there are some great bird owners out there that take great care of their birds - but the average bird owner doesn't. The diet is often the #1 husbandy error that we vets see, resulting in bone and kidney issues down the line.
That said, there are some great bird owners out there that take great care of their birds - but the average bird owner doesn't. The diet is often the #1 husbandy error that we vets see, resulting in bone and kidney issues down the line.
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