Genetics and reproduction Disease

Postpartum Dysgalactia Syndrome: A Simple Change in Homeorhesis?

Post-partum dysgalactia syndrome (PDS) requires consideration of physiology, endocrinology, innate immunology and ethology, according to a group of French researchers, who add that the condition may be more complex than Mastitis, Metritis and Agalactia syndrome (MMA).

8 May 2013

3 minute read

By: Jackie Linden

MMA is a clear entity often reported as postpartum dysgalactia syndrome (PDS). However, MMA may represent only a small emerging part of an iceberg represented by PDS, according to Dr Guy-Pierre Martineau from the French National Veterinary School in Toulouse and co-authors there and with Lallemand SA.

Until now, they report in Journal of Swine Health and Production, investigators have compiled a list of risk factors for PDS related to nutrition, housing, and management practices and suggested that endotoxins and cytokines may play a central role in development of PDS. However, the pathophysiology of PDS has never been defined.

The goal of their paper is to fill this gap, basing their proposal on the most recent published scientific literature and on the concept of homeorhesis developed by Bauman and Currie in the 1980s.

Homeorhesis, a term that encompasses dynamic systems that return to a trajectory, refers to orchestrated changes in metabolism of body tissues to prioritise a physiological state (such as gestation or lactation) and brings a new perspective to this multifactorial disease that the French researchers try to clarify using a transdisciplinary approach.

It appears, they added, that the clinical approach to PDS must simultaneously take into account physiology, endocrinology, innate immunology and ethology.

Reference

^{Martineau G.P., Le Treut Y., Guillou D. and Waret-Szkuta A. 2013. Postpartum dysgalactia syndrome: A simple change in homeorhesis? J. Swine Health Prod. 21(2):85–93.}