Why is prescription food prescription?

This might be a dumb question but my sister recently put her dog on a prescription food and she thinks that it has actual medicine in it so you should stick to how much the vet says to give him everyday.

My cats are on Hill's c/d dry, so does it actually have medicine in it? I give my cats food 4 times a day. I don't think that is how much the vet wanted to give them initially...I always thought this food just has stuff in it to help with uti's, not medicine stuff.

It doesn't necessarily have medicine in it --in that you need to give the same amount each day as if you were taking tylenol. It is just formulated with specific ingredients to make it appropriate for the cause. Like a Urinary formula has specific magnesium and phosphorus levels I believe--but a cat without UTI could eat it.

Leslie

That's what I thought my sister is just being silly.

Among other things, the c/d contains ingredients to make the cat's urine more acidic. The struvite crystals form when the urine has too high of a Ph. So this is the reason the c/d is prescription - it is possible (though much rarer) for a cat to have urine that has too LOW of a Ph in the urine and the c/d food would actually encourage the formation of that type (oxylate) crystals. That said, it's not like medicine in the sense that they need x amount of it each day and no more. My vet has never given me any specific feeding recommendations other than the chart on the side of the can/bag.

RX foods are like human prescription meds... NORMALLY a Healthy animal SHOULD NOT eat a RX food ..the foods are formulated to alleviate or fix a Problem or disease ... Some vets say yes all cats can eat a UTI formula RX but many will tell you about the higher risk of OTHER medical problem s if a healthy animal eats an RX designed for another... IE Do you take another persons antibiotic?? No

Non rx foods certified for a medical issue like UTI are SAFE for all as they are designed for less severe/ ie mild cases and PREVENTION and thus are also tested on healthy cats NOT so in the RX world