Rabbit

Rabbits have become increasingly important as animal models for medical research. Improvements in the rabbits' health through better nutrition and sanitation has allowed the raising and maintenance of rabbit populations easier and, in the process, has made them more useful as a research tool. This improvement in the quality of life for the rabbit would not have happened without medical research, which often relies upon the rabbit as a research animal.

The general physiology of rabbits is similar to that of humans, and like mice and rats, rabbits also suffer from many of the same diseases as human beings. Young rabbits often die from a disease called mucoid enteritis, which resembles cystic fibrosis and cholera; scientists believe rabbits will contribute to our understanding of these human illnesses. Louis Pasteur used rabbits to develop his rabies vaccine. Rabbits also produce antibodies that can be used to detect the presence or absence of disease.

The rabbit has been very important in the study of cardiovascular disease - in particular, hypertension and atherosclerosis.

For recent research involving one of the most promising new medical tools, the surgical laser, the rabbit provides an excellent model system to simulate the response of human tissue to this form of radiation.

Examples of laser advancements made possible by research on rabbits include eye surgery and the dissolving of plaque build-up on the walls of arteries. From cancer to glaucoma, eye and ear infections to growth studies, skin disorders, diabetes, emphysema, and more, the rabbit plays a key role in medical research.

The Watanabe Rabbit and Cholesterol: Medical researchers are indebted to the so-called Watanabe rabbit. This breed of rabbit suffers from a rare genetic defect that causes fatally high levels of cholesterol in the blood, a condition similar to a fatal gene defect in humans. Cholesterol levels in the blood of Watanabe rabbits soar dangerously high. Too much cholesterol in the blood causes atherosclerosis, a build-up of fatty plaques in the arteries, and these rabbits usually die of a heart attack by age two. Similarly, human children with the genetic disease familial hypercholesterolemia, who inherit two copies of the defective gene, have cholesterol levels three to seven times higher than normal, and usually die of heart attacks before they reach their teens. Watanabe rabbits are proving crucial to the search for better treatments for these children, as well as the tens of millions of North-Americans with less severe cholesterol problems. Among other things, they have been used in the development of an artificial liver to clean out LDLs from the blood of children with familial hypercholesterolemia.