Re: Cancer and Grays/hairshaft

["Beth Gunn" <happyhoofprints@hotmail.com>]

Kat,
ok, now we are getting somewhere.  This would make since especially in
horses born another color and "turn" grey.
Wonder if there is any correlation among people "turning gray" and
developeing cancer?  Arg!  Too much conjecture.  And we do so much to
ourselves that predesposes/causes different cancers in humans.
There should be a way to track that article down.  May have been written by
an "authority" who still writes for another magazine.
The search for info continues:))
Beth Gunn
----- Original Message -----
From: <guest@endurance.net>
To: <ridecamp@endurance.net>
Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 5:41 PM
Subject: RC: Cancer and Grays


> K S SWIGART   katswig@earthlink.net
>
> I vaguely recall having read in Horse Care magazine (so, yes, it was a
> long time ago, since the magazine has been out of print for almost a
> decade) that the same thing that causes a horse to turn gray (i.e. have no
> melanin in the hair shaft, which is why the hair is white) is what causes
> the melanomas.
>
> That there is some alteration in the skin that changes the shape of the
> hair follicle (or something like that) that makes it so that the melanin
> gets trapped in the black skin rather than moving down the hair shaft and
> giving the hair itself color.
>
> It is not a matter of: "most gray horses inherited their gray gene from
> the same source (although they probably did) and they inherited the
> melanoma gene as well from the same source;" but rather, "the condition
> that causes them to get melanomas is the same as the condition that causes
> them to turn gray."
>
> It has to do with how melanin is distributed in the skin (and coat)
> causing both conditions.
>
> However, just like in humans, not all melanomas are malignant (cancerous)
> melanomas.  But it is my understanding that if the melanomas grow
> internally, they can cause problems even if they are not malignant.
>
> kat
> Orange County, Calif.
>
> p.s. I do not know if this is true, but it made some sense to me when I
> read the article. And I do not remember how it is that these conclusions
> were discovered.
>
>
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