Sydney Goldstein

VBSC 407 Mastitis Article Review

Dairy cows produce more milk now per individual than ever. The increased
pressure exerted on these animals bodies to perform may have unexpected side
effects. In a study conducted in 2012, a group of researchers looked at ovarian follicle
development changes related to cows having chronic mastitis. Sixty-four cows were
sorted into four groups by severity of infection, ranging from low to severe. Their
findings concluded that primary and secondary follicular development is negatively
affected in cattle with chronic mastitis cases. The big picture is that high producing cows
that may already have difficulty with reproductive issues, such as getting pregnant,
could be associated with the mastitis caused by the strain on their bodies.
It is fairly common knowledge that cows that produce more milk than their herd
mates are generally at higher risk for developing mastitis. This is a complex and
multifaceted phenomenon and many people have different opinions as to why it occurs.
Some may speculate that the extra energy expenditure may cause stress to an animal
that lowers immune function. Sore or damaged teats from milking may create a more
ideal environment for bacteria to multiply than in lower producing counterparts. Surely
there are many factors that go into the development of mastitis.
The findings in this study show that animals follicular development had been
affected by both subclinical and clinical chronic mastitis. The severely infected animals
had the most lags in development between their transition from primary to secondary
follicles and less development of the largest follicles present when compared to the
other animals ovaries. One could consider from these findings that less overall energy
is being dedicated to reproductive function in high producing cows compared to lower
milk-producing ones.
However, it seems like more experimentation would need to take place to
attempt to prove this. Mastitis, just like any other inflammation in the body, causes an
immune system response. Therefore it should be considered that reproductive function
suffers in mastitis-afflicted cows since their body is responding in a way that any sick
beings would, taking energy away from the follicular development to contribute to
healing the utters.
This may seem somewhat elementary, as there are many recommendations as
to how to control mastitis. There are cleanliness procedures used before and after
milking; there are bedding and housing suggestions to avoid bacterial growth by limiting
bacterial growth. However, continued research in mastitis interactions with other bodily
functions in cattle is important since the incidence of chronic infection is fairly high. This
issue is extremely relevant to the high incidence of reproductive issues present in dairy
cows today. This specific study addressed how GDF-9 (growth differentiation factor 9)
was suppressed in cows with more severe mastitis cases, resulting in impaired ovarian
development and less growth of follicles.
Most of the data is actually statistically insignificant, but the most compelling
numbers are the ratio of connective tissue to total area of the ovary, which was
increased in the cows with mastitis. Also, the number of secondary follicles per
millimeter squared was more decreased in number in severe mastitis case cows than
the other less infected cows. Lastly, there was less observed GDF-9 in severely infected
cases of cows than in those less infected.
This study could have been improved by comparing the infected mastitis cows
with cows that did not have mastitis at the time, but previously had mastitis, and also
comparing those groups to cows that were mastitis free. Trends could have been
observed about the GDF-9 patterns in control (mastitis-free) cows that would have
made interpreting this data more significant. Perhaps some other variables such as age,
nutrition, management practices or housing environments should have been taken into
account to group the cattle more efficiently. Often older animals have less reproductive
success than younger animals after they reach a certain age. If animals had frequent
mastitis cases but also lived in a more stressful environment than other cows whose
ovaries were used in this study than that could have contributed to their less
pronounced follicular development. Nutrition could play a role in these cows
reproductive functions as well. Also, in this specific experiment the authors needed to
define what was considered a severe versus a low case. That could have been done
quantitatively through milk sample somatic cell counts or by other means.
The intentions behind this experiment were very well placed, but the lack of a
true control as inability to organize experimental groups efficiently watered down the
findings and made them more speculative than conclusive. That being said, the
research raises some very interesting and pertinent questions about relevant topics in
the dairy industry.