Animals – Adding up the chemical load

With all the world jumping up and down about our effect on the environment, let’s have a look at what we are doing in veterinary medicine, starting with the principles it is based on. The germ theory states that disease is caused by bugs (viruses, bacteria, fungi and so on) and has been proven since Louis Pasteur postulated it in 1861. It is the reason we use antibiotics, antifungals and so on to get rid of them. There are three main groups of antibiotics and their origins are as follows:

• Penicillins are produced by moulds,
• Tetracyclines are natural products from a soil bacteria called actinomyces, and
• Flouroquinalones, which originate as an extract from chinchona bark and, more recently, using artemisinin from artemesia plant.

Many of the antifungals are originally produced by the trichocomaceae family. Anti-parasitics such as avermectins occur naturally as a fermentation product of streptomyces avermitilis, a soil microbe. All these substances are produced to increase the producer’s chances of survival and give them an edge over their fellow bugs. It seems not only humans like to wage war on each other. Needless to say, many of these compounds are now produced in sterile laboratories.

The terrain theory states that the terrain needs to be conducive for the bug to colonise, multiply and evade the immune system, and then cause disease. This is the reason some animals get fleas and others don’t, and why some cats get cat flu and others don’t.

Here I would also include non-infectious causes such as nutrition (deficiencies such as magnesium and calcium in dairy cattle; as well as excesses, such as carbohydrates in cat foods or just plain over-indulgence leading to systemic inflammation, immune dysregulation and cancers), mental and social factors. This can include anxiety such as when there is inadequate socialisation of puppies, and inadequate exercise or boredom resulting in over-grooming.

In the last decade or so, focus has shifted from treating the infectious cause to identifying and solving the underlying cause. For example, is the yeast infection of skin due to systemic inflammation caused by a food allergy?

We are concerned about the chemicals we put into our environment. Have you added up how many chemicals you have in your home? Just for fun, add up the mg/ml of insect sprays, rat or mouse bait, antibacterial/antiseptic hand soap and so on, and multiply it by the amount of liquid in the bottle. You may be surprised.

Considering that we eat food, breathe the air and have zillions of bugs on our skins and in our intestines keeping us healthy, it would be fair to say ‘we are our environment’. So the question then becomes, ‘what are we doing to ourselves?’