Corn-Based Diets Have Been Turning Wild Hamsters Into Cannibals
Corn-Based Diets Have Been Turning Wild Hamsters Into Cannibals
Wild hamsters living in the south of France have been experiencing population decline for a while. Scientists previously thought it may be due to pesticides or habitat destruction, but the actual explanation is much more frightening. Find out more here:
Wild hamsters living in the south of France have been experiencing population decline for a while. Scientists previously thought it may be due to pesticides or habitat destruction, but the actual explanation is much more frightening. Find out more here:
Wild hamster populations in Western Europe have been on the decline for several years, with reasons ranging from the introduction of pesticides into their environments to the destruction of their habitats by mechanized ploughing. Now, researchers have discovered that the homogeneity of the corn-based diet currently available to many hamsters is actually to blame. In a recent study, a scientist attempting to understand whether hamsters' diets are affecting their ability to reproduce in the wild found a much more shocking truth.
While the study, led by Mathilde Tissier at the University of Strasbourg, found that hamsters' diets do not affect their ability to reproduce, comparing hamsters fed on a diet of wheat with hamsters fed on a diet of corn, they found that the corn-fed hamsters exhibited strange, violent behavior, running around in circles and climbing and pounding on their feeders. Most frightening of all, the hamsters subsisting on a corn-based diet would store their young with their food supplies and eat them.
The hamsters living on a diet of corn were found to have been deprived of vitamin B-3, or niacin. In humans and other animals, a deficiency in B-3 can result in a disease in humans and other animals called pellagra, which results in the 3 Ds: diarrhea, dermatitis, and dementia. According to the study:
Improperly cooked maize-based diets have been associated with higher rates of homicide, suicide and cannibalism in humans.
Mathilde Tissier
The Guardian, January 27, 2017
To verify the results, the scientists did a second test, in which they fed two groups of hamsters on corn, but added a B-3 supplement to one group's corn. The B-3 stopped the tide of cannibalism. Now, scientists are pushing for more biodiversity in regions largely populated by hamsters. According to Research Centre for Environmental Protection in Alsace President Gerard Baumgart:
It is urgent to restore a diverse range of plants in agriculture schemes. Monoculture in agriculture is really bad for biodiversity. Now we need to take concrete action.
Gerard Baumgart
The Guardian, January 27, 2017
So, now, we want to know...
Will you add more niacin to your diet?
Will you add more niacin to your diet?
Any other thoughts? Talk to us about them in the comments below, and share with your friends to see what they think!