|
Diabetes in Mice
©
paul goodman, 2002
Diabetes is not uncommon in mice and other pets. Usually the first indication is the amount of water the animal consumes and the amount it pees. I discovered that one of my mice, Athena, was drinking a lot of water and her cage smelled strongly of urine. Previously she had been one of my most active and athletic mice, but now she was acting lethargic and clumsy. I knew I had to do something for her but I was at a loss, it's difficult monitor blood glucose levels and give insulin to mice, especially a very fast deer mouse with sharp teeth, so I had to find another way. After consulting with my vet, my personal doctor and a number of message boards, I started to come up with a plan. I had been feeding them mostly low fat dog food. A breeder friend, Melissa Bueckert, pointed out that complex carbohydrates were better than simple ones because they convert to sugar much slower, and corn (a filler in many dog foods) was not a good source. She suggested that unprocessed foods (raw) were better than processed foods. She also pointed out that even though mice are omnivores, they are primarily grain eaters, but suggests adding up to 25% veggies and cooked beans for protein. She doesn't like animal protein, at least for diabetes. I located n interview with Ron Rosedale, M.D. on Insulin
and It's Metabolic Effects that I found very helpful. This interview
was published by the Designs
for Health Institute, which has a number of articles and interviews
that mouse owners may be interested in, see Robert
Crayhon Articles And Interviews with Experts. I had picked up a book called The Nature of Animal Healing by Martin Goldstein, DVM (no relation to Bucky Goldstein). This book is about holistic veterinary care, mostly for dogs and cats. Dr. Goldstein talks about curing or controlling diabetes through diet. He also uses insulin, but tries to get animals off if possible. For a diabetic dog or cat, he suggests a diet of 50% complex carbohydrates (grains), 25% chopped and steamed veggies, and 25% protein (egg or meat). This is for animals that are carnivores. Mice are omnivores and their diet should reflect this even more. Dr. Goldstein also points out that commercial pet food just isn't that good, he talks a lot about what they put on the label and what it means. He says:
See these sites for some more information about Dr.
Martin Goldstein and his book The Nature of Animal Healing:
I also got advise from my vet and my own doctor about Athena, and came to some conclusions. The only way I was going to be able to treat Athena was through diet. There was no way I could test every combination of diet, I'm not running a lab, these are my pets. I also couldn't be preparing lots of special diets for different mice. I figured that a diet that was healthy for Athena would be healthy for all the mice. I could adjust the diet for different mice by adding supplements. I thought about what mice eat in the wild (my guys are more wild than most), which is most anything editable, plants, seeds, grain, meat, fruit, etc. I finally came up with a basic diet consisting of whole and rolled wheat, oats, barley and rye; buckwheat and flax seed. I supplement this with different types of raw veggies, yogurt and cooked beans. I also provide fruit and seeds (hemp, red and white millet, pumpkin and sunflower etc.) as treats. Sometimes I give them a little sardine. Athena doesn't get very much fruit or fish, when I give her seeds I give pumpkin seeds and hand out 1 or 2 individually to all the mice with her (that's Athena, CC and Ghost). For these three I also add alpha lipoic acid, chromium, vanadium and vitamin C to their water on the advise from my own doctor and vet. Chromium and vanadium are helpful in the metabolizing of sugar; the alpha lipoic acid and vitamin C are good anti-oxidants; sardines and flax seed is a source of essential fatty acids (omega-3 oil) another good anti-oxidant. The results? Athena, CC and Ghost all lost a lot of weight and are
very sleek mice (well Ghost became a bit thinner). These were the fattest
of all my mice. They are all much more active and most importantly,
Athena's water consumption went down from about 4 ounces per day for
the all three of them, to about 2 ounces per day for the group. Athena
was drinking most of that 4 ounces a day. In round numbers, that's a
50% improvement in water consumption (an indicator of diabetes). I was
making headway, but still not enough. I then asked Jake Fratkin, Doctor of Oriental Medicine, about her and he gave me some Chinese herbs for diabetes. He prescribed Yu Quan Wan pills that were ground into powder. He instructed me to mix a teaspoon of the herb with about a half-cup boiling water, let cool and strain out the residue. I than added this mixture to her water at about 1 eyedropper full (1 squirt) per 4 ounces of water. After a month of this treatment, her water consumption dropped to between 1/2 an ounce and 1 ounce per day for the three mice. She became much more active and would run strongly on her wheel. She seemed much happier and was always the first one in line when I handed out their daily pumpkin seed treat. You can mail order Yu Quan Wan directly from Dr. Fratkin. It's very
inexpensive; a year's supply cost me $8.00. See these sites for some
more information about Dr. Jake Fratkin:
|