Episode 33 - Bonus Episode! Endocrinopathies IV - Canine Diabetes FEAT a VERY VERY special guest!!!

So now you guys know a little bit more about Dr. Stein Neeson and why we're so excited about having him on the pod.

We wanted to sort of dive a bit more into the topic itself.

So into canine diabetes, what it is and why we should be so worried about it.

So if you were going to describe diabetes mellitus to someone who didn't know what it was, Brendan, I mean, how would you describe it in dogs?

So it's a lack of insulin.

And that means your insulin's job is to get sugar from the blood, usually from your meals ultimately, and store it away.

And if you haven't got it, you can't store it away and it floats around in your blood.

Yeah, so I guess we all know that insulin allows glucose to be uptaken into cells, into insulin-sensitive tissues, and it regulates the liver's glucose production.

But in canine diabetes, generally we talk about insufficient insulin action, which leads to hyperglycemia, which then also leads to glucose loss in the urine and increased breakdown of fat and muscle.

So most dogs with established diabetes in dogs will require lifelong insulin replacement, and that's a little bit different to cats.

because we can see a lot of cats that can go into remission but we can also see a lot of insulin resistance from other diseases and sometimes hormonal influences so for example in your female entire bitches and sometimes from urinary tract infections etc which can complicate management so there's lots of different things to talk about when we talk about what diabetes is.

But I guess the main thing in dogs is usually it's lifelong and usually it's because we have insufficient insulin action, which is why we get this prolonged hyperglycemia.

With dogs, it's an immune-mediated destruction of the beta cells, specifically in the pancreas, short of the odd pregnant gestational hormonal kind of one.

And therefore, you've destroyed the beta cells that make insulin you're going to have to replace with exogenous insulin you're having to give them insulin artificially to boost them.

With cats, by and large, the insulin's there, but they're resistant to it.

They're not reacting to it.

You can think of it as lifestyle diabetes, if you like.

So yeah, they're different.

If you can get their body weight slim, if they are overweight...

And if you can keep their sugar levels low for long enough, because high sugar makes the beta cells get upset and they don't make their insulin as they're meant to.

So if you can keep the sugar levels nice, get them slim, many, many, many of them will become non-diabetic again.

And often for many years, if you maintain the right diet and exercise and weight.

Yeah.

And that's actually something we quizzed Dr. Stein about.

So I actually asked the question of saying, okay, a lot of diabetic dogs that we see tend to be overweight.

So now you guys know a little bit more about Dr. Stein Neeson and why we're so excited about having him on the pod.

We wanted to sort of dive a bit more into the topic itself.

So into canine diabetes, what it is and why we should be so worried about it.

So if you were going to describe diabetes mellitus to someone who didn't know what it was, Brendan, I mean, how would you describe it in dogs?

So it's a lack of insulin.

And that means your insulin's job is to get sugar from the blood, usually from your meals ultimately, and store it away.

And if you haven't got it, you can't store it away and it floats around in your blood.

Yeah, so I guess we all know that insulin allows glucose to be uptaken into cells, into insulin-sensitive tissues, and it regulates the liver's glucose production.

But in canine diabetes, generally we talk about insufficient insulin action, which leads to hyperglycemia, which then also leads to glucose loss in the urine and increased breakdown of fat and muscle.

So most dogs with established diabetes in dogs will require lifelong insulin replacement, and that's a little bit different to cats.

because we can see a lot of cats that can go into remission but we can also see a lot of insulin resistance from other diseases and sometimes hormonal influences so for example in your female entire bitches and sometimes from urinary tract infections etc which can complicate management so there's lots of different things to talk about when we talk about what diabetes is.

But I guess the main thing in dogs is usually it's lifelong and usually it's because we have insufficient insulin action, which is why we get this prolonged hyperglycemia.

With dogs, it's an immune-mediated destruction of the beta cells, specifically in the pancreas, short of the odd pregnant gestational hormonal kind of one.

And therefore, you've destroyed the beta cells that make insulin you're going to have to replace with exogenous insulin you're having to give them insulin artificially to boost them.

With cats, by and large, the insulin's there, but they're resistant to it.

They're not reacting to it.

You can think of it as lifestyle diabetes, if you like.

So yeah, they're different.

If you can get their body weight slim, if they are overweight...

And if you can keep their sugar levels low for long enough, because high sugar makes the beta cells get upset and they don't make their insulin as they're meant to.

So if you can keep the sugar levels nice, get them slim, many, many, many of them will become non-diabetic again.

And often for many years, if you maintain the right diet and exercise and weight.

Yeah.

And that's actually something we quizzed Dr. Stein about.

So I actually asked the question of saying, okay, a lot of diabetic dogs that we see tend to be overweight.