A scraggly beard and bulbous schnoz aren’t the only characteristics the North American moose shares with grandpa. Most moose, it turns out, also suffer from arthritis. “Moose guy” scientist Rolf Peterson thinks that learning about the arthritis that affects thousands of the animals on a remote island in the middle of Lake Superior can help us do something about our own arthritis.
“Arthritis is a death sentence around here — you need all four legs,” Peterson tells the New York Times of a malady that affects more than 50 percent of the moose on Isle Royale. “Wolves pick them off so quickly that you don’t even see them limping.”
Peterson’s team has collected bones from more than 4,000 animals on the 50-mile long island, most of which show signs of an arthritis remarkably similar to osteoarthritis — the most common human joint disorder in the world. Twenty-seven million Americans currently suffer from the disease, which affects nearly everyone by the age of 70.
The biggest news in the moose study isn’t that the animals have the disease — nearly all old mammals show signs of arthritis — but just how the moose got it. Peterson’s research suggests many of the animals become predisposed to arthritis before they’re born. There is a higher incidence of the disease among moose born during lean times — when pregnant cows don’t get the nutrition they and their unborn calves need — than among moose born during times of plenty.
Arthritis, in other words, takes root before symptoms kick in later in life. And although the condition is influenced by genetic predisposition — osteoarthritis runs in families — environmental factors may be even more important.
That means preventing the disease, or at least preempting it, might be a matter of eating right while expecting. Of course, nutritionists rarely agree on just what “right” is. Perhaps, in this case, the answer is right in front of us. “Moose,” derived from Algonquian “moz,” translates loosely as “twig eater.”
Bon appetite.
Photo by Jackaranga via Wikimedia Commons.