Early Altering and Health

[Kayos and Havoc]

Saw this posted on another forum I am on and thought of AddieGirls post regarding Spay/Neuter and did not want to thread jack with this.

Interesting info.

UC Davis study suggests neutering affects dog health - Daily Democrat Online

[Jax08]

It's nice to finally see a reputable source post the same information that has been out there for years but dismissed.

[mandiah89]

Interesting article... but reading all these articles of the things that can happen to your dog should you "neuter early/ neuter later/ or non-neuter" really makes me uneasy, I really don't know what to do for my girl Penny anymore... My vet keeps pushing to have her spayed 10 days after she has her last shots on March 8th, but again all these articles like this one make me really hesitant to do it now, if at all

[msvette2u]

My only problem is...I'd want to see hip scores for generations plus hip scores for the litter mates.

Furthermore, the new study showed a surprising 100 percent increase, or doubling, of the incidence of hip dysplasia among early-neutered males. Earlier studies had reported a 17 percent increase among all neutered dogs compared to all non-neutered dogs, indicating the importance of the new study in making gender and age-of-neutering comparisons.

HD is rampant because of overbreeding/inbreeding and poor breeding, the GR isn't the only breed this is happening in. So how can they say for certain...unless, for instance, one litter mate was altered early, and got HD, and the rest of the littermates were not altered early and never got it, and everyone else's hip scores in the pedigree were awesome.

There's just too much anecdotal "evidence" for me to say "yeah that's a problem". Because it's a problem in breeding dogs, too, which obviously aren't altered.

[Lauri & The Gang]

Here's the details on the study:

PLOS ONE: Neutering Dogs: Effects on Joint Disorders and Cancers in Golden Retrievers

[jocoyn]

Interesting. Everything seemed to go downhill for Grim after his neuter at age 8 in 2011 and now the vet *thinks* his tumor is a mast cell tumor which is a higher risk with the findings.

FWIW, despite the neuter the prostate gland is STILL enlarged though no evidence of cancer there.

[Rangers-mom]

I guess i just have keep my fingers crossed as i had no choice in the matter - Ranger was neutered at 8 months when he was dismissed from the Seeing Eye program. He did seem to, calm down a little after neutering, but that may just be a coincidence. I sure hope he doesn't develop joint or hip problems. The article does have me a little worried, but i really can't focus on things i cannot control.

[JeanKBBMMMAAN]

I like the last quote:

Could Castration Help Men Live Longer? Eunuchs Studied in Korean Records - ABC News

Do eunuchs really live longer? - CNN.com

The researchers calculated that the rate of centenarians among this group of eunuchs was at least 130 times higher than the current rate in developed countries.

"Females may have an advantage in longevity because they have a back-up X chromosome, (Dr. L. Stephen Coles, a co-founder of the Los Angeles Gerontology Research Group,) said. A woman's body is a mixture of cells, half containing an active X chromosome from her mother and the other half from her father, he said. If there is a defect on one X chromosome, half of her cells will be unaffected."

But what also really helps when it comes to living longer, he said, is to "choose long-lived parents."

Genetics really matter a ton. Things we can't see just by looking at parents. I had 2 male dogs, one larger, one smaller, both neutered about the same age (8-10 months), no parentage known. One lived til 16 (the larger) and the smaller passed at 9.5 - after throwing a clot from a successful surgery to remove a splenic tumor/spleen. Both disgustingly healthy except for my neuroses, til the end. So you can't just look at individual dogs - and even a study on a breed like Goldens is going to have problems because of their breeding, the high rates of cancer in the breed, obesity, etc and for the joint things - there were no Prelim type x-rays done - so you don't know how long they had HD (like 2 other male mixes of mine who were neutered in that 8-10 month range and xrayed and both found to have HD). Again they already had it but are just 2 stories of many.

I haven't read this whole thing (hope it is cited by others because it is good) and it may disprove some of my points but I wanted the stat on Goldens and cancer: http://www.grca.org/pdf/health/cancer.pdf

First, data
show that cancer rates in Goldens are elevated around the world.
While other countries may have a slightly different proportion of
certain cancers – for example, in the US our most common Golden
cancer is hemangiosarcoma, but in the UK, the most common
Golden cancer is lymphoma – the overall incidence of cancer in
Goldens is high in all countries. It doesn’t seem to matter whether
the line is US, Canadian, Australian, UK, Danish, etc – if it’s a
Golden, its cancer risk is elevated.

Approximately 60% of all Goldens will die from cancer. By gender,
it’s 57% of females and 66% of males. Human cancer is also skewed
slightly toward males, so it’s not surprising that dogs are too. For
comparison, the rate of cancer in Goldens is just slightly less than
double the rate of cancer in all dogs, which is estimated to be about
one in three (and which actually is about the same as in humans).
But even though our cancer rate is nearly double the all-breed average,
it’s important to keep in mind that the average lifespan of the
breed is still within the same 10-11 year range as all breeds.

[KZoppa]

Many of us already had a basic understanding of this. We also know that this doesnt just apply to goldens. We already know the horomones are necessary for proper growth and development.


http://news.yahoo.com/video/uc-davis...012700325.html

[llombardo]

I don't have a basic understanding of this or why anyone gets cancers because I'm not God or a doctor...And Rotts are prone to this kind of cancer and GSD's are prone to HD, etc..It doesn't matter anymore..If a dog is going to get an illness there is nothing that is going to change that, whether its spaying/neutering early or late. Just like a person can't do anything about getting cancer and they can't pinpoint why people get cancers..its the same and no different with dogs. It happens..the only thing that can be guaranteed is that cancers that are gender specific(uterine/testi) can be avoided if spayed/neutered at any time. Everything else is a crap shoot. Maybe they need to worry more about how to fix it instead of what causes it, because IMO they will NEVER figure out what causes it.