Recent Discovery By Cancer Researchers Can Double the Life Expectancy of Your Pet Rats

I came across this a few weeks ago:

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Recent Discovery By Cancer Researchers Can Double the Life Expectancy of Your Pet Rats

By Colin Patterson

The average life expectancy for a rat is three years, with the record longest living rat reportedly dying at the ripe old age of 7, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. The oldest rat I have ever had was a male named Rodney who died at the age of 6.

This brings up the cry from rattie lovers: why must they die so soon?

I've struggled with this question for almost three decades of rat ownership.

Your rat's life expectancy comes from a combination of exercise, proper nutrition, and, most of all, genetics.

The good news, however, is that there is something you can do above and beyond all of that to boost your pet rat's life expectancy, using secrets discovered very recently by medical researchers. You see, a lot of the studies aimed at boosting longevity in humans are done on rats, so it's a good idea to keep up with what is being done.

A recent huge breakthrough was the discovery that rats given a supplement called Inositol (chemical name Inositol hexaphosphate or IP6) had almost double the normal life expectancy as rats in a control group and almost never got cancer!

Inosital comes from high fiber foods such as brown rice, wheat bran and sesame seeds. The net result for your rattie is fewer cancerous tumors and a higher degree of overall health, since the study found that it aids your rattie's body in its metabolism for healthier bone marrow, liver functioning, calcium absorption, and a few other things. If you wish you can read more about this at The American Cancer Society website: http://www.cancer.org/docroot/ETO/content/ETO_5_3X_Inositol_Hexaphosphate.asp?sitearea=ETO

The best part is that you can find cheap Inositol at your local vitamin store. You see, a lot of humans believe that IP6 can help them just as it helps rats, so it's readily available.

According to a vet I interviewed who was familiar with the research, just dissolve one-eighth of a teaspoon per 16 ounces of water into the drinking water of your rats.

Your rats will probably like the taste (my own ratties prefer it to regular water), since it tastes sweet.

Also, if the water bottle is exposed to light, cover it with aluminum foil since Inositol is sensitive to light.

Finally, if you do use Inositol with your pet rats, I recommend supplementing their diet from time to time with iron, as IP6 can slow your rattie's absorption of that mineral.

As always, be sure to double check everything with your veterinarian and check the studies I linked to for yourself, but clearly this is important news for us pet rat lovers who would do anything to boost the life expectancy of our little ratties. I've only just started my own pet rats on Inositol a couple months ago, but I'm observing initial signs of increased health that look promising

Colin Patterson is author of Pet Rats: How to Easily Train and Care For Your Ratties...To Have a Happy Life Together where you can find out all about pet rat health and how to boost the life expectancy of your rats -- check it out by going to http://petratguide.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Colin_Patterson

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We started Doodles, SunshineJack, Shiva and Bubbles on Inositol

We got a bottle of 50 capsules of 500 mg for about 30 Euro.

Since we have 500 ml bottles we disolve one capsule (500 mg) to a bottle, which comes aprox to 1/8 of a teaspoon to 16OZ.

So roughly calculated, 30 euros will buy you almost a years supply for 2 rats

Instead of wrapping the bottle in aluminum foil, (which they happily strip off in no time ) we cover the bottles with cut-oof socks to block the light out.

Hmm - well, I'm not sure I'd go down the route of supplements, rather feed more in the way of sesame seeds, brown rice etc. I'm not a fan of supplements if I can avoid them.

Might point out though that it's not from the most reliable of sources - this guy came up in conversation elsewhere a while ago, and the site is very odd indeed - so don't take what he says as wrote. For a start, 3 is not really average life expectancy in pet rats - certainly not in Europe.

I think there's no harm in trying this one out, but don't expect miracles

xx

Zoundz wrote:Hmm - well, I'm not sure I'd go down the route of supplements, rather feed more in the way of sesame seeds, brown rice etc. I'm not a fan of supplements if I can avoid them.

From the Wikipedia article on inositol:

Neither the inositol nor the phosphate in phytic acid in plants is available to humans, or to animals who are not ruminants, since it cannot be broken down, except by bacteria.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inositol

The same wiki article clearly states:
" Inositol as it occurs in certain plant-derived substances such as lecithins, however, is well-absorbed and relatively bioavailable."

I'm rather puzzles why you would quote a single line to dismiss the notion that it can have positive effect while the rest of the wiki article clearly explains the benefits and supports it, along with a myriad of articles published by the Lancet and the American Cancer institute to underwrite it it.

What is the purpose of this (mis) information?

Excuse me? Misinformation? It was in response to Laura's suggestion of using seeds and rice to point out that it wouldn't be of use in that form.

You are correct to state that the inositol in phytic acid in plants is not available to humans, it is available through lecitine and other plant deriviates. Rice and sesame seeds does contain lecitine (not as much as soyabeans, but it does contain it)

The outer layer of a rice kernel, called rice bran, is composed of the rice germ and several sub layers which account for app. 8-10% of the weight of the paddy rice. Rice bran contains over 60% of the nutrients found in each kernel of rice. Rice lecithin, phospholipids (app. 1.6%) and glycolipids (0.8%) are found in the crude rice bran oil. The phospholipids predominantly include phosphatidylcholine (PC), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) and phosphatidylinositol (PI).


But the amount of derived inositol of P6 would be rather low in comparrison to the supplement given available.

I was just taken aback by the single statement and felt that the information was incomplete (while correct in regard of phytic acid.)

I hope you can forgive my sometimes uncontrollable urge to see all the dots connected

Calm down guys I think from what I've read on the American Cancer journal, supplements are not tested and that eating more of the foods that contain the substance is the only real way to increase intake. I think perhaps it's just the phytic in plants that is an unavailable form.

http://www.cancer.org/Treatment/TreatmentsandSideEffects/ComplementaryandAlternativeMedicine/DietandNutrition/inositol-hexaphosphate?sitearea=ETO

xx

well thinking about, and rereading, I must admit I had a foot in mouth moment there, apologies to Lew!

On a second note, I did read in the article that trails have not done with humans yet, but ttest have been done on rats and single cells. Unfortunately, it has already been labelled as alternate medicine, so there is little hope on conclusive results as I am sure big pharma will spew out a bunch of unconclusive tests to cloud meta analysis

That is, untill the moment comes they can make it synthethically, and it will be the new wonderdrug (with ofcourse some side effects)

Meanwhile there I ready to take a leap of faith bases on the tests I find in PubMed (and somewhat leaning on a past career in biochemistry )

A bit of a shame that PubMed requires a subscription and one is not allowed to share... the wealth of information in regards of the norway rat biology is a treasure!

So brown rice?
If so thats awesome cause mine have been on dry brown rice a good while xD