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posted by martyb on Friday August 14 2020, @07:48AM   Printer-friendly
from the how-much^W-big-is-that-doggie-in-the-window? dept.

Big Dogs Face More Joint Problems if Neutered Early:

It's standard practice in the U.S. and much of Europe to neuter dogs by 6 months of age. This study, which analyzed 15 years of data from thousands of dogs at UC Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital, suggests dog owners should consider their options carefully.

"Most dogs are mixed breeds," said lead author Benjamin Hart, distinguished professor emeritus at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.

[...] Researchers examined common joint disorders including hip dysplasia, elbow dysplasia and cranial cruciate ligament tears, a knee injury, in five weight categories.

[...] The risk of joint disorders for heavier dogs can be up to a few times higher compared to dogs left intact. This was true for large mixed-breed dogs. For example, for female dogs over 43 pounds, the risk jumped from 4 percent for intact dogs to 10-12 percent if spayed before a year of age.

"The study raises unique challenges," noted co-author Lynette Hart, professor at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. "People like to adopt puppies from shelters, but with mixed breeds it may be difficult to determine just how big the dog will become if you don't know anything about the dog's parents."

Neutering prior to adoption is a common requirement or policy of humane societies, animal shelters and breeders. [...] Shelters, breeders and humane societies should consider adopting a standard of neutering at over a year of age for dogs that will grow into large sizes.

Journal Reference:
Hart, Benjamin L., Hart, Lynette A., Thigpen, Abigail P., et al. Assisting Decision-Making on Age of Neutering for Mixed Breed Dogs of Five Weight Categories: Associated Joint Disorders and Cancers, Frontiers in Veterinary Science (DOI: 10.3389/fvets.2020.00472)


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  • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday August 14 2020, @10:23PM (14 children)

    by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Friday August 14 2020, @10:23PM (#1036796) Journal
    Not necessarily true. For. non-athletes, the combination of exercise and high doses of estrogen can cause significant muscle gain. Double your biceps without even trying. It's a curse.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 15 2020, @12:10AM (13 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 15 2020, @12:10AM (#1036838)

    I thought excess estrogen gets converted into testosterone? (and excess testosterone gets converted into estrogen?)

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by barbara hudson on Saturday August 15 2020, @01:14AM (12 children)

      by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Saturday August 15 2020, @01:14AM (#1036866) Journal

      Not at very high levels of estrogen. I have no detectable testosterone and estrogen levels at least twice the peak of a 20-25 year old woman. Anything less and I end up with serious back and neck pain (fractures of the c5 and t6 vertebrae that were missed on x-rays until last year, causing lots of pain). Tripling the dose of estrogen strengthened the muscles enough to keep everything aligned through the day and accelerated the healing of damages at night. When I tried to cut back, after a month I'd start the day in pain.

      It makes the world of difference. I went in to help out at the local food bank today, stacked 700 kg of fruit juice on pallets, unpacked, sorted, and shelved a couple hundred kg of other food, and I feel fine - and I'll be 65 in less than a year. It's a bit frightening. Never had this much muscle before HRT, so go figure. The back and neck vertebrae healed at an angle to the surrounding vertebrae, so I really should not be able to do this, but better than a back brace or surgery, especially since I also used to have lower back pain as well.

      I know another woman who's a couple of years older, she had back surgery years ago and last year the screws started to come out. Now she's on OxyContin to function, and still needs leg braces and arm crutches. I'll stick with overdoses of estrogen. Even after a 22 km walk back in April I'm fine the next day

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      • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday August 15 2020, @02:11AM (11 children)

        by Reziac (2489) on Saturday August 15 2020, @02:11AM (#1036895) Homepage

        It's probably not the estrogen as such, but rather the thyroid-estrogen feedback loop encouraging better thyroid function than you could otherwise expect at that age. Increasing one leads to an increase in the other, and good thyroid level prevents both early aging and a host of age-related health issues (including the heart problems you mention in family).

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        • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday August 15 2020, @02:39AM (10 children)

          by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Saturday August 15 2020, @02:39AM (#1036909) Journal
          I'll take it. Why so many doctors still believe the discredited WHI study 20 years later is beyond me. Then again , they also believed OxyContin wasn't addictive. And that duodenal ulcers were caused by stress. And that depression was caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, instead of social and/or economic problems.

          "You're depressed."
          "Of course. I just lost my job."
          "Take this pill every day."
          "That won't get me a job."
          "You have a chemical imbalance in your brain that is causing your depression. The pill will fix it."
          "How do you know I have a chemical imbalance. You didn't do a test."
          "You're depressed and it's caused by a chemical imbalance."
          "I'm depressed because I lost my job. Cause and effect. I need another job to fix my depression."
          "No, you have a chemical imbalance in your brain and this pill will fix it."
          "You say I have a chemical imbalance but there's no physical test, no blood test, cerebrospinal fluid test, MRI to detect it."
          "Don't need a test. Your brain has a chemical imbalance. We know this because you're depressed."
          You sound like a quack, or a faith healer, no proof, no test, and you're missing the obvious cause of my depression. I lost my fucking job!" Just refer me to a social worker so I can talk to someone to help deal with my problems. You know, help me get to a better place mentally so I can find a job."
          "A social worker won't fix your chemical imbalance."
          "Any proof I have a chemical imbalance?"
          "You're depressed."
          "I'm depressed because I lost my job. It's NORMAL to be depressed when you lose your job."
          "So you admit you're depressed. You therefore have a chemical imbalance. You need to take this pill."
          "If you lost your job, would you be depressed?"
          "Yes."
          "Would you take the pill?"
          "I'd get another job,"
          "BINGO!"

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          • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday August 15 2020, @03:00AM (9 children)

            by Reziac (2489) on Saturday August 15 2020, @03:00AM (#1036915) Homepage

            There's situational depression (such as from losing your job), and there's biochemical depression (usually due to endocrine dysfunction). One is cured by getting another job; the other is cured by fixing your busted hormones. Naturally it is possible for the two to overlap.

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            • (Score: 2) by Common Joe on Saturday August 15 2020, @08:34AM (5 children)

              by Common Joe (33) <{common.joe.0101} {at} {gmail.com}> on Saturday August 15 2020, @08:34AM (#1037012) Journal

              Yes, but Barbara was pointing out that doctors tend to treat everything with a pill and ignore the obvious cause. There's a lot of truth to what she says. I haven't had that exact conversation with my various doctors, but very similar ones. I cannot tell you how often my doctor recommended a cure worse than the disease.

              • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday August 15 2020, @01:09PM (4 children)

                by Reziac (2489) on Saturday August 15 2020, @01:09PM (#1037055) Homepage

                Oh, get me started on how doctors treat the test results rather than treating the patient...

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                • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday August 15 2020, @05:28PM (3 children)

                  by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Saturday August 15 2020, @05:28PM (#1037153) Journal
                  It's not just psychiatry. Most doctors are totally unaware of the psychiatric side effects of common drugs prescribed for physical problems. Hypertension - a Japanese study of more than 3,000 patients uncovered a connection between blood pressure medication and suicidal ideation in diabetics. I found that out the hard way - was prescribed blood pressure meds, went into a serious suicidal depression for most of a year, discovered the study, went of the drug, cured within a couple of weeks. Found plenty of law suits against the manufacturer for exactly this problem.

                  Was convinced to go back on a different brand, 5 years of absolute hell and antidepressant use, which made the whole depression far worse. Finally got fed up, stopped all the drugs 6 months of hell, then life started getting better.

                  Was over at my sisters talking about this (pre-covid, obviously - none of us allow visitors or visit friends in their homes because we take this shit seriously, and yesterday the Canadian government said we will probably never have a really effective vaccine, and that we're in for what will probably be a much larger second wave, followed by successive smaller waves). My brother in law is a retired pharmacist. He got out the automatic blood pressure machine, I told them it won't work properly on me. First test - your blood pressure is dangerously high. Told him to try again. Your blood pressure is dangerously low. See? Try again. Your blood pressure is dangerously high.

                  As expected. Totally inconsistent readings because the mechanics of the test don't work properly with people without shallow blood vessels in their arms. Taking a blood sample from me is often more hit than miss. Sometimes they can't find one in either arm and have to take it off the back of the hand. I'm aware of the problem, so I ignore results, which is okay because the recommendations have changed so much over the years that what was considered dangerous isn't any more. Plus I have a really serious "white lab coat " reaction to blood pressure tests. Given a few minutes to adapt, and it goes from dangerous to lower than normal. So the medication was never needed in the first place. And neither were the antidepressants, which also caused serious leakage of exudates in my retinas for years. 6 months after stopping the drugs, they no longer had cotton wool patches that covered half the surface. And the holes in both healed spontaneously.

                  I've had one large bleeder since, but it dispersed quickly, and I took it easy for a while to let the clot anchor itself. One in almost 2 years I can live with.

                  Should have expected that drugs that affect brain cells negatively would also affect the retina negatively, and the OCT scans and retina photos show the correlation. Antidepressants do a lot of harm, with no independent studies showing effects over that of a placebo, and twice the suicide rate of those with the same tested severity who opt for other forms of treatment.

                  Booze would probably be better. You can share it, so decreased social isolation, and the negative physical side effects take a lot longer to manifest. And people who aren't naturally drinkers won't have the stigma of "going off their meds," whether it's for a week or forever.

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                  • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday August 19 2020, @03:52AM (2 children)

                    by Reziac (2489) on Wednesday August 19 2020, @03:52AM (#1038696) Homepage

                    That whole mess of symptoms are in the spectrum for hypothyroidism. And when that's the cause, treating symptoms (especially depression!) often makes things worse, or unstable -- it's like painting the house to fix a failing foundation. As noted the hefty estrogen dose is probably keeping your thyroid going strong, thereby fixing all manner of vague and seemingly-unrelated issues. (Look up "300 thyroid symptoms" -- a non-exclusive list.) Anyway, I'm glad you're doing well. If things start going pear-shaped, get a detailed thyroid/endocrine workup and go from there, before trying to treat anything else. Tho given your age, if you're stable now, you're likely to remain so.

                    High blood pressure is a common but generally unrecognized result of low thyroid (via two different mechanisms). Wild fluctuations can happen when potassium and sodium levels get out of whack (either secondary to thyroid or due to goofy dietary intake, such as not enough sodium). You can see how HBP meds can be the wrong answer.

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                    • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday August 19 2020, @10:12PM (1 child)

                      by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Wednesday August 19 2020, @10:12PM (#1039072) Journal
                      Thyroid function is fine.
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                      • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday August 19 2020, @11:16PM

                        by Reziac (2489) on Wednesday August 19 2020, @11:16PM (#1039093) Homepage

                        Good. Here's to your continued good health.

                        If you go unstable, thyroid should be the first thing checked (and not just the accurate-but-misleading TSH test). But as noted, with the high estrogen, it's likely to stay put.

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            • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday August 15 2020, @04:46PM (2 children)

              by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Saturday August 15 2020, @04:46PM (#1037134) Journal
              Nope. The whole "depression is caused by a chemical imbalance of the brain was started as marketing, and there has never been a single biochemical test of the brain to back it up. In fact, in one study where they injected chemicals directly into cerebrospinal fluid, no change of mood was detected.

              Even "clinical depression" or major depressive disorder is always situational. Which explains why long-term those who attempt to treat it with medication have twice the suicide rate of those who don't, everything else being kept the same. Independent studies (there are very few - most have authors with connections to drug companies) fail to show a better rate for drugs over a placebo.

              This is why the UN has called for the end of medicalizing the brain to treat depression back in 2017. Change the persons underlying economic or social situation and depression disappears. Most of the "disorders" in the DSM are fake pseudoscience, with no actual physical test (blood, imaging) to back them up. And every release they add more, resulting in an ever increasing spiral of unnecessary and dangerous drugs being prescribed.

              Video game addiction? The care is simple - take a hammer to the kids Xbox or PlayStation. Not drugs.

              Depression brought on by chronic pain on the job? Change the job or adapt it, not antidepressants.

              Remember the long history of psychiatric fraud. Assertive women were "hysterical", being attracted to the same sex was a psychiatric pathology that was criminalizes, transsexuals were pathologized as delusional and overdosed with hormones of their birth sex (leaving many dead from suicide and others jailed for testosterone-induced rage). Keep in mind the whole field started with charlatans selling fake nostrums and circus acts of hypnosis.

              One interesting thing in the UK, where many people on benefits that are so low its not really possible to maintain any sort of dignity and where people have committed suicide because they can't survive - many of the depressed get cured when they hit retirement age and collect a pension that is enough to live on without scrounging every day and worrying their benefits will be cut off for whatever reason.

              Problem is it's cheaper to prescribe a pill than to help people gain insight into their lives or help them find meaningful work that gives them a sense of fulfillment and social engagement. Well, cheaper unless you account for the loss of tax revenues from putting people on brain damaging drugs that make them unable to work to their full potential, or even work at all. Because MRI studies show grey matter loss in people on antidepressants, and it takes about a year and 9 months to recover as much as you'll ever recover after stopping the drugs. It's also why people complain about personality changes, being in a fog, not being themselves - the drugs have the same effect as dementia. You'll still be depressed - you will have just been rendered passive enough to accept that this is your lot in life because you have a fictional brain chemical imbalance.

              These drugs are very addictive, so when patients stop taking them and experience withdrawal symptoms, they're not told it's withdrawal, but "discontinuance syndrome." Amazing how those who persist in staying off the drugs eventually stop experiencing the effects of withdrawal, and as the brain fog decreases they're often able to get their lives back. Help from social workers who respect the decision to go "off their meds" makes a big difference.

              Almost every patient seeing a psychiatrist will tell them within 15 minutes what the real problem is. Job loss, relationship problems, social isolation, experiences hatred, racism, prejudice, non-acceptance by key people in their normative social group for being lgbtA24Z, a physical handicap, decline in health.

              You don't fix this shit with drugs that as their main means of effect cause pruning of brain synapses. That's just nuts. But psychiatry needs validation from drug companies, and drug companies need validation from psychiatrists. The psychiatrist who prescribe one ineffective drug after another "in the hope of finding something that works " aren't necessarily evil, just incredibly naive. And egged on by patients who want a pill to fix their broken lives, because working to effect real change is hard, and almost impossible in many cases without help. It doesn't help that you can't fix many of the problems because it's society, not the patient, who is sick.

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              • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday August 19 2020, @04:04AM (1 child)

                by Reziac (2489) on Wednesday August 19 2020, @04:04AM (#1038701) Homepage

                While back came across an interesting paper (which I can't find again) by a shrink who found that he could permanently cure 90% of his bipolar patients literally overnight by putting them on T3 (active form of thyroid hormone). To compress out all the tiresome details, what this means is that most cases of "bipolar syndrome" are actually undiagnosed Hashimoto's thyroiditis (an autoimmune disorder, which can be inherited or acquired). Basically the supplemental T3 shuts down (and replaces) the failing/leaking thyroid gland, halting the wild fluctuations in hormone levels, which had been making everything else flipflop between hyper and malaise. (IBS is a 100% dead-on symptom of Hashi, same reason.)

                [10% of his patients reacted badly; those were doubtless due to some other cause. So he learned to do the initial dose under supervision. Fortunately any reaction is transient.]

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                • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday August 19 2020, @10:56PM

                  by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Wednesday August 19 2020, @10:56PM (#1039085) Journal

                  Most "psychiatric illnesses" have caused and cures that don't involve any medication. We've been treating symptoms rather than causes. The twins study that claimed schizophrenia had a large genetic component was debunked after the lead investigator repeatedly refused to release the raw data. Others were able to track down many of the twins and found the claims that they didn't share the same environment were false.

                  Turns out the common factor was abusive home life, not a genetic predisposition.

                  If someone has situational depression, fix the situation. Seems obvious but psychiatry needs to do a hard reset. Even psychiatrists recognize how fucked the dependence on drugs and medicalizing the brain is doing way more harm than good.

                  We've become a society of wimps. A survey of over 1400 people asking if this was the worst year of their life had the majority say yes. I'm having a great year despite blowing my good eye again two weeks ago and again yesterday. This isn't even in the top 10 worst years ever.

                  How hard is it to wash your hands, wear a mask, and keep two meters away from people indoors? Millions being paid to sit at home - oh, the stress! There's tons of essential jobs begging for workers but people would rather sit at home and make more.

                  People are rational actors in the short term, so when their employers call them to come back to work, they only want one or two days work per week so they can continue to collect full benefits here in Canada.

                  it's like the university student who went on TV saying the proposal for a student benefit was too low - she wanted a permanent $2000 a month payment for going to school, no work requirements. Gee, sign me up for that! This is on top of massive subsidies. Of course she wants to be a lawyer … figures.

                  We've become a nation of wimps. And our prime minister wants to continue this? The universities are just as bad, wanting to charge full tuition for classes that are 100% remote, and also changing student fees for cancelled services. And we wonder where the sense of privilege comes from?

                  We knew that automation was going to change the nature and availability of work. Covid has given us a foretaste, and we've shown we aren't tough enough to face the future - people just want to hit the bars and party like it's 1999. And spread covid and force struggling businesses to shut down again..

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