What effect does lighting have on adrenal disease and hair loss?
No one is really sure why adrenal disease is common in ferrets. One theory is that artificially increased “day lengths,” due to humans keeping the lights on when it’s dark outside, somehow interfere with the proper functioning of the adrenal glands and, over the long term, may contribute to the development of the disease. No formal tests have been done, but still, some people try to keep their ferrets in areas without artificial lights at night, or at least try to keep the lighting low, in the hopes that it will help prevent adrenal disease. However, most people agree that artificial light cycles can’t cure adrenal disease once it’s begun. Dr. Cathy Johnson-Delaney writes: I think there is something to the pituitary-adrenal feedback loop, that it gets turned on, then the adrenal gets “super stimulated” and hyperplastic, and eventually neoplastic. Dr. Judith Bell is now theorizing that this pituitary “turn-on” or over stimulation (the pineal gland is also involved) may have something to
