BVA Journals: Neutering is no longer the hallmark of responsible ownership
She is especially keen for vets to understand the breadth of ways in which research has shown the reproductive system contributes to an animals physiology. Take for instance the role of luteinising hormone (LH), which is responsible for triggering ovulation in females and production of testosterone in males — and is a key research focus for Kutzler and colleagues at her lab.
“When we first started looking at it, we found luteinising hormone had receptors on lymphocytes, so these immune cells that are floating around and involved in everything from fighting off viruses, fighting off bacteria, to making antibodies. When we started to review the literature, ‘we found that other people before us had demonstrated there were these receptors in humans, laboratory animals and even in dogs.’
In itself, that didn’t necessarily mean a great deal. Just because a cell has a receptor for a certain hormone doesn’t mean that it actually does anything. If you think of a receptor asa lock and the hormone as the key, you could unlock the door and theres nothing behind it,” she explains.
Indeed, Kutzler suspects the general assumption had been that there was nothing behind the LH receptor lock on the lymphocyte door. ‘Not that there was any science behind it, but it was just: “Why would there be reproductive hormone receptors on lymphocytes? They must not be functional.”
To test the assumption, Kutzler and colleagues collected lymphocytes from both neutered and intact dogs. ‘We grew those lymphocytes in cultures and added increasing levels of LH to see what happened. Did it unlock the door and there was something behind there? Sure enough, what happens is LH induces neoplastic changes in lymphocytes. Among them are cell proliferation, cell adhesion and cell ‘migration into tissue.”
For Kutzler, this provides an explanation for a finding seen in research studies – that lymphoma, along with certain other cancers, occurs in much higher rates in neutered dogs.
“We know that there are a number of serious neoplastic diseases such as lymphoma, haemangiosarcoma, osteosarcoma that can develop after gonadectomy,” says Stefano Romagnoli, professor of small animal reproduction at the University of Padova; president of the Italian Society for Animal Reproduction; and chair of the World Small Animal Veterinary Association reproduction control committee.
“And we also know that some castrated dogs develop prostatic carcinoma. It’s strange; counterintuitive.
I’ve been recommending (with rare exceptions) against routine neutering of my male puppies for at least 25 years, because we knew it was bullshit.
Veterinary’s are like doctors, they advise according to their $$$$$in flow.
I always ignore their “advise”, so my little pooch is still intact. They can stay away from his nads.
Didn’t know they lived that long. Awesome.
Scientists will talk about how neutering f**ks with an animals hormones and has links to later cancers, but none will dare take on researching the impact on human females of ramping up all of the hormonal and other physiological changes involved in a pregnancy, only to have it unnaturally short circuited through chemical or mechanical means.
Phil – good point but also, what impact does chemical and surgical neutering have on children who have been convinced they are in the wrong body? Waiting for a flood of lawsuits and special MAID applications…
It gets ‘naturally’ short-circuited all the time. There’s no evidence of negative effects.
I wonder if this applies to cats as well? My male cat died of lymphoma almost a year to the day after his neutering. He was only 1 1/2 years old.
I wondeed this too.And what about females? The problem is there are hundreds of thousands of cats each year that go homeless because they aren’t spayed or neutered and reproduce prolifcally. I’ m involved with groups that try to find homes for cats. I’ m not about to recommend that people don’t spay or neuter their cats. / Very sorry about the loss of your cat, rmgk. That does seem pretty unusual to me. My husband and I have had cats for many years, often six at a time, once seven (the 7th was 10 years old and blind in one eye from a herpes infection), currently have four. I’ve not heard of that happening in such a young cat. I’d be skeptical about vaccines given. Years ago our first two cats, a mother and daughter, both died of cancer (at age 13 and 16), but it was injection site sarcoma, when they still gave shots between the shoulder blades.
File this under, Plato’s cave prisoners notice heat coming behind them.
What bonehead truly believed interfering in a body’s natural processes and surgically changing it’s natural path would yield a better result than allowing nature to unfold as it should? Abortionist, neutering, castrations, and pretty much all early years surgery is poorly reasoned, or logical.
Anyone who actually has expertise or knows what life was like when it was allowed to unfold ‘naturally’.
You get to keep your balls until they become a problem.. Simple as that.. As far as health concerns go if nobody is willing to keep you because you are splooging all over the place.. You are as good as dead anyway..
Hmmm, I hope this doesn’t apply to female cats.
It just makes sense that removing body parts has to have an effect.
At least I’ve stopped vaccinating her after the covid fiasco
Kate, What about female dogs?
They’re harder to neuter.
Buy a dog from a virtue signalling “rescue” and you have no choice.
Part of the “adoption fee” is mandatory sterilization.
Damn it Jim, I’m a neutered dog.
We’ve been gelding horses for centuries. The Mongols were noted as the first to practise it. Geldings are safer to handle than horses. They also don’t get goofy like mares tend to do about twice a year.
The same people who told you to neuter and spay your pets to help keep them tame never seemed that keen on doing it to humans, no matter how poor their impulse control—and no matter how many reformed perverts claimed that castration was the best thing that ever happened to them.
I sometimes wonder how many “transwomen” are looking for a socially acceptable excuse to have themselves castrated to bring their unsavoury sexual urges under control, because no reputable psychiatrist still views homosexuality as a mental illness that needs treatment, not indulgence.
We spayed our current dog and the one before.
Same breed.
This one is eight.
The last one died of lymphoma a few weeks past her 7th birthday.
I wonder if Bob Barker is spending his time burning in HELL … for ending every one of his shows with the admonition to spay and neuter your pets? Did he know he was condemning pets to a painful, lingering, death from cancer.
In a related story … I am very glad that I’m not firing blanks at age 68. Nor have I ever had a cancer scare.
Bravo for you, Kate … you have great instincts … not to mention knowledge and understanding of your beautiful dogs.
Is your girlfriend pregnant again, Kenji?
No, she’s good … I practice the pull out method … hahahahaha ha ha ha .
That’s how my first kid was conceived.
Nonetheless, always spay or neuter your liberal progressive friends.
I brought Marco to obedience school.
The instructor thought it might be helpful to publicly ask me why I hadn’t neutered Marco in front of everyone?
Simple questions demand simple answers right?
Because “he likes to lick his balls” set the record straight and created quite a stir among the other intact dog owners.
We had three female dogs in our life, all were spayed, all lived long and healthy lives, in excess of what was considered the norm.
I’ve spayed all of my outdoor cats … and most of them were killed on the busy street a block from my home. I’m convinced that spaying made them stupid. My current cat is an indoor cat. Live long and prosper.
You spelled “prospurr” wrong…….
Interesting but you can really only gleen so much from an ex vivo study like that, and there’s a lot that can go wrong. Need some LH receptor KO and ideally inducible KO animals to get some real data.
Ex vivo studies were first conducted by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s cousin, X. Vivo Fitzgerald.