Formerly bile-farmed bears as a model of accelerated ageing

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 13; no. 1; pp. 9691 - 10
• Main Authors: Kalogeropoulu, Szilvia K., Rauch-Schmücking, Hanna, Lloyd, Emily J., Stenvinkel, Peter, Shiels, Paul G., Johnson, Richard J., Fröbert, Ole, Redtenbacher, Irene, Burgener, Iwan A., Painer-Gigler, Johanna
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 15.06.2023; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/443; 692/4020; 692/4022; 692/420; 692/499; 692/699; Aging; Anesthesia; Animal models; Animals; Bears; Bile; Biomimetics; Farms; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Inflammation; Joint diseases; Kidney diseases; Living conditions; Long-term effects; multidisciplinary; Phenotypes; Sarcopenia; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Senescence; Ursidae - genetics; Ursus thibetanus
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-36447-z

Bear bile-farming is common in East and Southeast Asia and this farming practice often results in irreversible health outcomes for the animals. We studied long-term effects of chronic bacterial and sterile hepatobiliary inflammation in 42 Asiatic black bears ( Ursus thibetanus ) rescued from Vietnamese bile farms. The bears were examined under anesthesia at least twice as part of essential medical interventions. All bears were diagnosed with chronic low-grade sterile or bacterial hepatobiliary inflammation along with pathologies from other systems. Our main finding was that the chronic low-grade inflammatory environment associated with bile extraction in conjunction with the suboptimal living conditions on the farms promoted and accelerated the development of age-related pathologies such as chronic kidney disease, obese sarcopenia, cardiovascular remodeling, and degenerative joint disease. Through a biomimetic approach, we identified similarities with inflammation related to premature aging in humans and found significant deviations from the healthy ursid phenotype. The pathological parallels with inflammageing and immuno-senescence induced conditions in humans suggest that bile-farmed bears may serve as animal models to investigate pathophysiology and deleterious effects of lifestyle-related diseases.