Raw Truth. Real Health

Episode 7 - Sex, Spay, Neuter: The Impact of Sterilization of Skin Disease

• Dr. Roz (PhD) • Season 1 • Episode 7

Share episode

Everyone's talking about it. To desex their pet or not.? BUT no ones is digging deep. I'm joined again by Dr. Jeff Grognet and we're going deep on what are the impacts of desexing on skin issues in pets. Our biggest Raw Truths bombs are being dropped.

To follow and connect with Dr. Roz and Australian Pet Nutrition
Follow on socials - @australianpetnutrition or connect for education, nutraceuticals, food and more at australianpetnutrition.com.au

Speaker 2 (00:03.95)
I'm Dr. Jeff Grognet and with me is Dr. Ros Rowan. And Ros is an animal naturopath and homeopathic vet nurse in Darwin, Northern Territories, Australia. You'll be able to tell that when she starts talking. Her background is in human research as an university academic, but then she turned to animal health.

and she's a partner in a veterinary rehabilitation center and the owner and founder of a raw food and nutraceutical company, Australian Pet Nutrition. And today we're going to be talking about skin conditions related to the spay and neuter sterilization procedures. So welcome, Roz.

Thanks, Jeff. It's great to be back talking to you.

Yeah, we've had you in the past talking about cancer and holistic treatments within the last conference. That was great. And so anyway, we're moving into the sterilization quandary. So tell me how we're gonna get started on skin conditions. How are we gonna go there?

Well, I think, as I say, and as you said, you can tell my accent, but Australia, I always say is probably about one to two decades behind the rest of the world. And this, whole relationship between, you know, skin, potential skin problems and when an owner decides to spay or neuter really isn't looked at together. But it's something that I started looking at

Speaker 1 (01:39.596)
really early on and making some really interesting connections. And then I mentioned to you that I went and pulled some historical data from cases and looked at it in relation to some studies. And I went, my God, there is quite a correlation, although I don't like to use that word, but there is some interesting connections between the cases I'd been collecting over the years and studies. And I really think that we need to bring that.

you know, out there more to people to make, you know, more well-rounded decisions about the potential, because it's not just a potential to, to spare on Yida. It's what does that do long-term to the rest of the body and potential other health impacts?

Yeah, the, when you go back 20 years here in North America, what the, what we were given was, if you have a totally naked Siberian husky, could be due to lack of hormones, right? And then you ended up doing hormone levels and trying to figure things out and then trying to figure out how to supplement them. But, literally that was about it. Okay. But even now the information on is really big.

So let's look at a case. Let's see what you're talking about.

So, well, I'm going to talk collectively because I think that's where it's interesting. So whenever I have a consult, I always obviously ask, you know, we always look, is the dog, you know, spayed or neutered? And when did that happen in relation to how old the animal is? So did it happen, you know, in that first six months, six to 12 months, or was it, you know, as a mature adolescent to adult, male or female? And then from that point of spay or neuter,

Speaker 1 (03:24.62)
when did their skin issues start? And what I saw in over 85 % of my male cases that it started within that six to eight weeks post-neutup. And that actually lines up with when we see the weight, like how long it takes those testosterone levels to start really waning and fading out of the body. Females, slightly different because obviously they do have

testosterone and that we know that plays a role in sort of immune modulation, mycelia, et cetera. But progesterone and estrogen do function a little bit differently. So in my female spay cases and skin conditions, they tend to already have some before spay or new dust. So there wasn't as much, you know, exacerbation of it.

which I found really interesting that it tends to be, and I tend to see a lot more male dogs than I do female dogs, which is, that could just be, you know, the nature of the beast where I am. But also when you look at, when I looked at studies around females, progesterone and estrogen do tend to play quite a role already. And then a reduction in that.

can actually see lessened allergy symptoms. And that does correlate with what research says around the function of those two hormones. So in some dogs that had been spayed, they actually might see a reduction. And I have seen that in a few cases. So it's a tricky one, right? But I actually think what the key hormone is there is testosterone in both males and females. So when you might have higher testosterone in females, we actually see potentially less, you

allergy type symptoms and skin issue manifestations. And that also aligns with what role we know testosterone plays across male and female dogs.

Speaker 2 (05:26.934)
Yeah. So when you say you're seeing them with skin problems, is there any specific skin issue?

Yeah, so lots of like environmental allergy skin conditions is the main one. Alopecia is a huge one. And it's also like with skin, sometimes you're playing chicken and the egg, like is the environmental allergy the primary issue? Is there other underlying things? And then often you see like environmental allergies, but then they develop secondary skin problems like bacterial skin infections because of.

excessive scratching, they've got more alopecia, all those kind of things. But most often we see more development of things like food intolerances, which have an effect on skin, and then also environmental allergies. think like in Australia, I would say that's probably number one or two issue that's presenting at clinics across the country.

Yeah. And I think it's the same pretty well anywhere. And that is allergies are the top of the list, you know? And that's why we see so many pharmaceutical companies getting into the tablets for allergies, right? There's a lot of money involved in that, you know? So yeah, they're prevalent. When you're talking about alopecia, the hair loss, that, from my experience, is a fairly low number.

Compared to allergies, know, it doesn't even.

Speaker 1 (06:56.91)
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And I think, um, the allergies is, the primary one. And as you said, it's, it's then treated with, um, you know, your common and pharmaceutical drugs, but we're never looking at. Like a timeline for the animal and a timeline around spay or neuter. And, you know, I know in clinics who we're not measuring hormone levels and, know, we're just completely ignoring the relationship that potentially exists, but it's something that when, um,

humans go to allergy doctors, they're always looking at hormone levels and the potential role of hormones in that immune response. But we really aren't doing it in the animal world, which blows my mind. I have family members who have severe like anaphylactic allergies and we're always talking about the potential role of hormones in that. And then I say that correlates to animals and there's studies that show that, but it falls on deaf ears because

Unfortunately, we are operating in a paradigm where we must desex, we must, you know, do that because that controls all these behavioural problems and it controls all these unwanted population problems. But we're not thinking about the bigger picture of where that sits in that sort of health ecosystem.

That's the purpose of this conference, obviously. Let's get information there, let's get it out, and that way people can really learn it. The thing is, even now, there's a lot of conventional veterinarians that say, well, spay and neuter doesn't affect anything, except having babies. And so we're still in that paradigm where, it's an innocuous procedure and we don't need to worry about it that much.

but there's a lot of attention come on in the last decade. so that's like you're saying, what you're saying is the changing the testosterone levels specifically is what you're hammering in on that affects the responsiveness, the activity of the immune system.

Speaker 1 (09:03.402)
Yes, because we know that testosterone has immunosuppressive properties. So if we alter the level of testosterone, we're likely going to alter its ability to play a role in immunosuppressive properties. mean, if it's not there, because we completely desex, well, then it doesn't have those abilities no longer exist in the animal. We've taken that. And we also know that testosterone regulates mast cells, which helps.

you know, manage allergic reactions and things like that. They, testosterone helps reduce the release of histamines, which are a big factor in managing, you know, canine allergies is they have this, you know, massive histamine explosion. And we know testosterone can play a role in reducing that, but in, you know, a large portion of the population, they don't have that testosterone to help with that.

And the way I think about it is they have, we have these hormones for a reason. As soon as we start, you know, changing the normal regulatory function of, of any animal, something's going to change. And it's not just, it's not just a sex hormone. Like we know, we know that, but we've got to stop looking at it just from like a sex hormone lens. It plays such a role in that immune regulatory.

function for dogs in particular. I sound really passionate about it, but skin is just such a chronic problem and these animals are miserable and we do need to, we owe it to the animals to look at that whole body function and what hormones do across all the different body systems.

Okay.

Speaker 2 (10:48.206)
So if I've got a three-year-old gold retriever with allergies, surprise. And it was, let's make it male.

and was desexed when it was a year and a half old because that's a common recommendation. Now while they finish growing, let's do it then. And now at three years, I've got this golden retriever, I'll do it this way, that's had recurrent hotspots. So it's had bacterial infections and conventionally, every time the hotspots blow up, it's put on antibiotics, it's put on apiquel to take this inflammation down. There's a case study for you.

And now that dog, after having had five bouts of hot spots because they just keep coming back, and they've tried every hypoallergenic food on the earth. What's the first step you would be doing with these guys?

Well, I would want to create a timeline of like, like patterning allergies, like were they present before the spay neuter or not at all, or were there any signs? Because sometimes we miss potential signs where, you know, they were just rubbing their face on the ground and, know, it wasn't that excessive. And now they do it excessively and they've got no fur around their eyes, that kind of thing. So I like to create a timeline because we want to look at

when things have changed in the animal, including, you know, things like taking away, you know, vital organs and hormones, or was there already signs of it before? But that doesn't mean that there's a direct correlation to it because that dog might've had waning testosterone anyway. So it's not a hard and fast rule, but if we then take that away and it increased, there's gotta be a likelihood it had something to do with it.

Speaker 1 (12:41.216)
that would be my sort of thoughts. And then I would really want to say, well, then you get this sort of like web that opens up because yeah, they might've been on hypoallergenic food, but if at that point, before they were desexed, there wasn't really any issues around food, but then it's also gotten, now they're on all these hypoallergenic foods. Well, they might have food intolerances because we know that testosterone does play a role in all those kinds of immune modulation things and food is.

Part of that. where, you know, so you've now opened up a can of worms for the dog where they might not have had, you know, all the problems, but it's the relationship that that procedure potentially has to, to food, to environmental allergies, to, you know, are they more susceptible? I, know, some cases I've seen where you've got dogs that are more susceptible to then developing immune mediated problems or autoimmune conditions.

And we know there's so many studies on the relationship that testosterone, but also estrogen and progesterone have in limiting the development of autoimmune conditions. it's about creating, you've got to create a timeline and not ignore any changes to anything and really spend time documenting that. And I know that can't always happen in a 15 minute consultation, but you need time to create

a real timeline to look at when did things change for the dog and that does have to play a role when procedures happened because I can guarantee you that there's some relationship there. I'm not saying that correlation equals causation, but what I'm saying is we can't ignore the potential that there's a relationship to that change.

Okay, so if we're thinking strongly that the lack of testosterone is contributing to what I'm seeing in the skin right now, is there a way to test if it is the testosterone being the issue?

Speaker 1 (14:47.298)
Well, you can't, my understanding is we can test testosterone levels. but if you've got a D sex dog, we can almost assume they don't have any, testosterone levels. so that's kind of a, wasted test, but if you're, you had a dog and you're trying to decide whether, you know, testosterone is playing a role before you go and D sex and remove that testosterone, you can definitely test hormone levels. Now this is something that you have to advocate for because,

I mean, I did it when I was younger. It's not a test people want to run and they kind of look at you like you're a little bit mad, but we want to get a whole picture, right? So you might have signs in your, in a blood test that there might be, you know, elevated Acinevilles count, you know, which is a sign that there's, you know, inflammation and potential, you know, these are hints that the dog may be having allergy problems. And then if we saw, you know, blood tests that showed it's a male dog who

is still intact but has lower testosterone and higher thinner fields then maybe there's a relationship there. So it's a it's you know this is the role diagnostics play in helping us paint a picture. So I think it's important to to have diagnostics in that decision making process as well but we don't do it like I have I think I've you know seen so many vets do these and go

while they're doing the, know, spay, the castration going, is going to be a skin dog. And I'm sitting in there as the surgical nurse going, why are we doing this? You know, we've not, we've not thought about, you know, the flow on effect for that. And the flow on effect for owners because skin is not a cheap condition to manage. It's just not.

No, it never is. Yeah. A lot of times, it's an area that will take skin biopsies, especially if there's alopecia. And, and like, as you don't have any reaction in the skin, but they're just losing hair and you through the skin biopsy. so, and I'm not so much now, but years ago, I used to get these reports back that said suspect hormonal problem, which meant, my God.

Speaker 2 (16:59.062)
And know, Chris, then you're looking at adrenal function, you know, and, do you have a tumor or do you have a lack of thyroid, of course. And then that really bizarre thing called maybe there's an imbalance of the sex hormones. That's as definite as they could get.

Yeah, it's interesting. I've seen like more than I'd like to actually cases where it present, you know, you get alopecia and they do, they do the biopsy and, and then actually what it is down the track is it's lupus, which we know is a autoimmune condition. and I just go, my God, what, what's going on? Is there a potential relationship to that particular, condition being an autoimmune condition and then

where we suspected there was potential hormonal, you know, relationship as well. So it's, it's just, yeah, skin and we shouldn't be dismissing it at all. I think it should be like front and center of, of. Yeah.

Okay, so if we've identified that or we suspect it, which is I think is the way we're going, what do we do?

Well, if it's about decision-making for whether to desex or not, my advice is, you know, don't rush into the procedure. See if you can maybe look at making, you know, non-life-changing decisions for the animal's health. That can be, you know, you can take away or give back, for example. We can't give back the gonads, right, or the ovary, but you might be able to

Speaker 1 (18:45.034)
maybe improve the testosterone levels through supplementation. There's lots of herbal supplements that can help with that. There's lots of, maybe food isn't a factor, as big a factor, so maybe you can moderate it with food. Before rushing into desexing and going, we've just created an absolute hurricane of an issue. So I always think, look what you can tweak and change that might be able to modulate the overall health.

before because how many people are also taking just general, you know, biochemistry and blood panels to look at the health of the animal before they make these big decisions. I know we do pre-anesthetic blood, but we're not looking at the overall sort of health and wellbeing of the animal before we make that decision to, to spay or neuter. And I think that has to factor into our decision-making as well, because we might want to put the animal through,

a course of, in my case, I prefer herbal or different supplements to get those bloods looking better before we then go and make a life-changing procedure on the animal. I think that we really need to be looking at what's the health right now of the animal? Is it the decision right now, the best one to spay on udder? It shouldn't be, it's cheaper because if I do it under six months, I get a discount. shouldn't be bad. You need to look at,

where they are in their life stage and development. Is it the right thing to do? What's their health like? Is behaviour a factor? if it's not, no, that's not a factor, then let's toss that out of our decision-making process. So I think we really diminish how big a procedure spaying and neutering is in terms of not just for female dogs, right? It's a complete hysterectomy, but it's...

It changes the animal in so many ways because, we do it to quiet and then we do all these things. It's a, it's a huge decision-making process that we just bob off and we don't discuss as health practitioners with owners and then owners don't discuss it either. We've just had it ingrained into our head that we must, must do it. But the why is never really delved into.

Speaker 2 (21:01.684)
Yeah, no, there's a lot of beliefs that are in there that which aren't true and we're going to be talking a little bit about sterilization related to behavior, which is going to be an interesting avenue to go down because there's a lot of assumptions in there that frankly aren't very true, you know, so I think we can...

We can improve on that idea. the thing about doing testing before, and here's this one really rang a bell with me. I just remember a dog that was, I think was just a lab or something like that. No specific, you know, marked breed. But I just remember it had some skin problems and we thought, maybe the thyroid's a little low, you know, but that was it, right? But what we did with it was to just get it on, let's get on to some real food.

rather than commercial stuff, that type of thing. But I remember the people got lost to me. They went to another hospital. And the next thing is it was back a few years later, desexed. And wow, it had a full blown thyroid problem at that point, as it is going on supplementation. We don't have a choice here. And it always made me think of that one because the Dr. Jean does

talks about this and that is if you take away the gonads thyroid problems really do appear.

Yep. And I also think, you know, just, you know, treat thyroid issues with thyroxine and then they treat that as a lifelong condition, not understanding that the body can regulate and we should be maybe considering that we don't need to have a dog on that medication for long time. I've got a golden retriever at the moment that has been on thyroxine for 10 years, but the

Speaker 1 (22:59.342)
It just doesn't need to be on it. And it could have been, you know, if you look at the history of the bloods, it could have been avoided initially putting onto it. If you said we dealt with diet, it's, yeah, that's a really interesting one. And I think we also don't pay attention to thyroid levels enough.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, there is called the master hormone for a reason. Yeah.

And so, yeah, but we're putting the sex ones a little bit above in this. Yeah, for this symposium anyway. So, but yeah, so, so they have they have an effect. There's no doubt about it. And the, mean, and now we're, mean, we're going to, I've got other speakers talking about the effect of, you know, taking away the hormones, the LH levels and all that whole, the whole thing. mean, there's, there's so much more.

Yeah, wait.

Speaker 2 (23:54.144)
available information available on it now compared to a few years ago where we said yeah it just takes the testosterone away. Yeah but as you say it has a global effect on everything else and I like I can partly brought up about the allergies and that is the the testosterone is putting its thumb down on the immune system keeping it at bay and then when you take that away you take the thumb off it it's like the immune system goes okay

Let's see what I can attack.

Yeah, it's this free for all and you can almost, if we were to give a voice to it, like, it's just have at it. It's just having a field day on the go because that gatekeeper's not there. It's like, the gates are open and go for it.

So the million dollar question, we've got a dog that has allergies, it was neutered two years ago and they're just getting worse and worse. And they started right after neutering. Can we put that dog on testosterone? Does that help? Is it viable or is it other methods?

So you can see my dogs are having a great fun time. I think it's something worth considering. I think my first point of call would be to see if you could manage it with herbs. But if not, then it's something that we should consider. if you look at, I do sometimes like to look at the human world because, you know, there is a lot more advancements in that role. Hormone replacement therapy has a role there.

Speaker 1 (25:29.686)
and particularly around monitoring hormones for severe allergy cases. But in the case of testosterone, I actually think it's something we should be considering, especially if you've got a dog that you've kind of tried everything and you can't get allergies under control. like, why aren't we thinking about testosterone supplementation? Why not? But that's a long conversation to have with the treating vet.

You're to have somebody that knows what they're doing with that.

Yeah, I don't think it's a rush into that. I think you should explore other holistic options, but have an understanding of, you know, that might be a viable treatment option.

Okay, that sounds great. Okay, well thank you very much, Ross. Any last words on this, the lack of gonads and skin?

My final word is just to really think about the whole picture before rushing into any decision making to really nut it out for your individual dog and think about how your dog presents and how that might impact your individual dog.

Speaker 2 (26:43.316)
Exactly. Yeah. And it is, and it's also a difference in, gee, have you got a Chihuahua or a Great Dane? They'll suffer from the same things, but you can manage them differently. Right. So you've got to look at all that. So thank you very much for coming on board. This is wonderful. And we're going to be hearing from you on another topic. So everyone can look for that one too. So thank you, Roz.

And thank you for bringing me into the Australian perspective.

As always, a pleasure.

Okay, thanks a lot. Thanks everyone for watching. We'll catch you in the next one.