Scientific Studies Supporting Raw Food Diet

Very eloquently put, and if there are no scientific studies to support raw feeding at this time, then commentary by advocates should at least not speak in such absolutes regarding claims for raw or against commercial that are unsubstantiated.  

Ultimately though as much debate as there is, we are all on the same team with the same goal, to improve feline health.  

Of course anecdotal evidence matters. It is such evidence that often stimulates an interest in formal studies.

Formal studies are important to give both veterinary professionals and consumers confidence in raw feeding. I understand why the majority of people aren't comfortable with raw diets because of the lack of such studies. But there are some people, and even some vets, who seen with their own eyes the benefits of raw feeding and are willing to put aside their doubts in order to help suffering animals.

BTW, there are a few studies that have shown at least some benefits to raw feeding. Just because you can't find them doesn't mean they don't exist. Just a few days ago I ran across a study that compares the partial nutrient profiles of a raw homemade cat food, a cooked homemade cat food and a processed cat food. I now can't find it. I know it exists but I can't find it. However, there is no large scale, long term study contrasting the benefits of a raw diet and a processed diet and there isn't likely to be one any time soon due to lack of private sector funding.

My personal experience has shown me what I consider irrefutable proof of the benefits of raw feeding. I have no doubt of those benefits. What I don't know and what a formal study would help to show is why raw feeding is beneficial. What we see on forums like this so often is mostly conjecture about the why. It may be conjecture based on solid science but it is still conjecture. 

BTW mediCATe - This topic has been beaten to death *so* many times. Rather than us going over the same ground yet again maybe you could take a look at this (very long) thread:

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/235022/best-diet-for-cats

Well, as I indicated, *I'm* not interested in covering the same ground for the millionth time with yet another raw doubter. You are not bringing anything new to the table. You are not making any points that haven't been made a million times over. As I suggested, you should can read other threads in this forum to get the answers to questions that others have already asked.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mediCATe 

 This is something new because it is meant to consolidate scientific data showing the benefits and risks from the actual scientific literature.

Exactly, there are certainly threads, but this should be made a sticky IMO to consolidate links to actual scientific studies of raw diets, such as the link provided by the OP.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by mediCATe 
is there anyone that can provide real evidence for raw food diet?

 

Millions of years of feline evolution.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sugarcatmom 
Millions of years of feline evolution.

Scientific Studies Supporting Raw Food Diet

"So if raw food is actually beneficial, I challenge proponents to post the studies that show the benefit. Criteria that weaken studies' importance include risk of study bias, confounding factors that influence the results, small sample size etc."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carolina 

ISo yes, "anedoctal" evidence IS very important.... It is, actually factual. If not done in a shape of a study, it is still a fact - it is, still statistic, and relevant.

Anecdotal evidence is by its very definition inaccurate, as it is based on anecdotes, second-hand accounts, or hearsay.  It is defined as the polar opposite of formalized scientific evidence.

As a specific example using your tobacco analogy, I could say that my grandfather smoked like a chimney and yet lived to the ripe old age of 89 years old and never experienced any respiratory symptoms.   This may actually be verifiable fact, but it is considered anecdotal evidence as the sample size is so small as to be meaningless and thus does not disprove that regular tobacco use is harmful.  As another example, if a witnesses claim in a court trial cannot be corroborated or have a suitable means to test and asses the testimony, it is considered adencdotal evidence and is for all intents and purposes dismissed. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carolina 

 I call that FACTS and Relevant statistics - he named it, not me.

Scientific Studies Supporting Raw Food Diet

"So if raw food is actually beneficial, I challenge proponents to post the studies that show the benefit. Criteria that weaken studies' importance include risk of study bias, confounding factors that influence the results, small sample size etc."

Ducman is right in that anecdotal evidence is hearsay and generally not considered evidence. Hearsay is generally inadmissible in courts of law too. However, anecdotes as observations do prompt hypotheses, theories and peer-review/falsification via rigorous study—so they are important as a first step even if they're not considered evidence on their own. It's obvious that some trends end up being correct, and many turn out false. How do we know what is true and what isn't? Epistemology. Prior fact. Scientific peer-review. Falsification of theories (with grounds for falsification), etc. That cats are raw-food eaters is hardly conjecture or even an unfalsified theory...it's demonstrable and observable fact, corroborated by various factors related to feline evolution. In the wild, 100% of cats observed in their natural habitat hunt and kill prey and eat it raw, and evolution has shaped them for this purpose. 

The major factor that raw-food opponents are overlooking is this: Evolution. 

Those of you who insist an evolutionary-based diet *isn't* sufficient (as in raw food, from carefully-vetted sources) need to prove your claim, and not charge those who accept the fact of evolution and cat physiology with proving that somehow a raw diet is sufficient when that's what cats evolved to eat over millions of years. This tactic is called 'shifting the burden (of proof)'. Humans are omnivores, and those who claim otherwise have the burden of proof (and some people actually claim this on occasion). The same is true for those who are promoting a non-default diet for cats (usually built around human convenience, infrastructure, mass-production, etc.). 

There is simply no debate here on whether raw food is ideal for cats (again, millions of years of evolution shaped cats to eat raw) so much as, what is the best way to feed raw food to a cat? Cats just don't ever eat cooked food in the wild, nor would they have the means or need to do so. Cats also don't eat plants (aside from some nibbling on grass, inexplicably), but those who claim cats are omnivores, need grains or that cooked food or kibble is superior to raw have the burden of proof, simply because raw food is the default again, as shaped by evolution (evolution being an uncontroversial fact, by the way). There are two arguments here we need to be sure not to conflate. A *raw* diet *considering best practices* and best practices themselves as they relate to acquiring raw pet food. We should assume that all food is vetted for 'best quality', be it canned, kibble or raw. This puts everything on balance so we can isolate raw vs. canned vs. dry to see what the costs/benefits are. 

The argument against a raw diet is basically an argument against evolution or a form of mild evolution-denial, similar to those who claim humans aren't omnivores and tend to have a vegan/vegetarian agenda. Not saying all veggies have this agenda, but some do (revisionist evolution). Many veggies promote the health/ethics tack, but some pretend humans aren't omnivores and of course, this is just wrong.

Those who insist raw food isn't ideal for cats are denying evolution, observation, comparative species analysis along with DNA comparisons, cat physiology, the hunting instinct of cats and their clearly-observed reflexes, feline teeth and digestive tract along with gut flora,, their observed preference for canned over kibble and those who go nuts for raw, the need for psychological stimulation, the benefit derived from using their jaw and other muscles to eat meat on bone and the obvious hydration benefits inherent to raw food (which are far superior to canned/dry even with water available).  

Cats are classed as obligate carnivores and evolved as small desert animals with a low thirst drive since they derive so much moisture from meat. Meat as we know is about 80% water (humans too), so even on this metric along, proper water intake will prevent at least a few known issues relating to UTI and blockages. This of course is simply one example.

Cats do not cook their food. Thus, raw food is the inherent and evolutionary-selected default. Anything else is a trade-off for human convenience with some cost. I think some cat owners have guilt about this and try to pretend that raw food is is somehow inferior or dangerous when it's actually a cat's natural diet. 

So, the one-word answer is this: Evolution. 




 

The problem with just rabbit is that rabbit is too lean, and no cat would eat just rabbit as a sole diet as they would need fat and organ meat to supplement this. Humans who eat solely rabbit end up with too little fat and can end up suffering what is known as 'rabbit starvation'. Bodies need fat...humans included and too little fat has deleterious side-effects. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation

A study conducted with solely rabbit as meat is a *bad* study with an almost dishonest agenda. Studies need to be designed fairly to have useful results. 

 

Cats have been domesticated anywhere from 8000-9500 years based on where you get your info, and evolution has been working for millions of years. So, even allowing for scavenging feral cats or housecats, 9500 years is nothing in the realm of the evolutionary timescale. Evolution works slowly and cat physiology has not changed appreciably. Domestication and artificial selection has made cats smaller or created breed characteristics, but cats are still cats (and DNA comparison studies confirm this nicely).

As a comparison, there have been vegetarian/vegan humans for thousands of years even though humans evolved as omnivores. Has evolution re-shaped us simply because some humans choose (for any reason) to eschew meat? No. Humans are evolutionarily and physiologically omnivores, and anything else is simply a departure from that. In fact, human omnivorism is an adaptive strength which made it easier for us to survive to-date. Humans also carry a broken gene for an enzyme to synthesized vitamin C, a broken gene we share with chimpanzees. This wasn't selected-against in human or chimp evolution though due to the wide-availability of citrus fruits, though I can't say much for the scurvy-ridden crews of ships before this little factoid was discovered. A few limes, lemons or oranges fixed this problem right up. 

This is just comparitive genetics, and we can do the same thing with housecats compared to small wildcats or even lions and tigers. In fact, it's quite telling that hybrid domesticated cats have been created from servals and housecats known as the 'Savannah' cat (they're on YouTube and quite large and beautiful). Why would housecats be able to breed through with certain small wildcats if they were so evolved away from their close (and wild) genetic cousins? The fact is, they're very similar and can breed because of this genetic similarity which is nearly identical. Humans share nearly 99% of our DNA with a chimps and yet chimps have an extra chromosomal pair and of course humans and chimps cannot breed. The point here is that housecats are genetically very similar to their wild feline cousins and their diet would be quite similar as well. Likewise, chimps are also omnivores just like humans, and value meat highly and hunt live prey in packs (observed). They also use meat as a form of currency, 'currying' favor with allies and mating partners.    

If cats were evolved away from raw food, we would also expect to see vestigial organs like humans have. The term vestigial doesn't mean the organ isn't used—just that it's not used for its original purpose. Humans have vestigial organs which are still used for other purposes...and funnily enough, we even have a vestigial tailbone. But, I digress. 

Again, raw food is the default. Any replacement for raw needs the explanation, not the other way around. We can certainly discuss best practices for any type of food, however.  

Here's a great site about Feline nutrition with some solid, science-based info by Lisa A. Pierson, DVM: http://www.catinfo.org/

Originally Posted by LDG 

You need to distinguish between wild cats and domestic cats, that's the only problem I've got with the argument. Domestic cats most certainly do eat cooked food "in the wild." Millions of them around the world have lived on cooked human scraps of garbage for thousands of years (though most likely not only as the sole source of food). A study of a feral cat population in Australia found that a feral cat colony living at a garbage dump derived 80% of its calories from the garbage, and the cats did very little hunting.

Actually, the domestic cat is not physiologically the same as its wild ancestor, the African Wild Cat (and we addressed this in a thread prior to your membership, link already posted above). The one important difference in our domestic cat is a longer intestine, "which may have been an adaptation to scavenging kitchen scraps." (Darwin). Citation in this post: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/235022/best-diet-for-cats/180#post_3110987

"The premise of the raw food diet is that it is "natural" for cats to eat raw meat. Is this really the case? Cats may have domesticated themselves, but it was literally thousands and thousands of years ago. They have hunted mice for us, and they definitely hunt live prey... but they have also eaten man's leftovers for this entire period of time. I don't know if anyone's seen cats at a garbage dump, or cats raiding the garbage can... but cats are not only hunters, they are highly adaptable scavengers. In fact, all of the research I've done on feral cat behavior indicates that cats are first and foremost opportunistic in their eating habits. Cats have been eating our cooked scraps since the dawn of domestication." http://www.thecatsite.com/t/235022/best-diet-for-cats/30#post_3106667

Not to derail this discussion. Perhaps response should be directed to the "Best diet for cats" thread. Again, the link is http://www.thecatsite.com/t/235022/best-diet-for-cats
 

I'd like to slide in here with some newer information that has not, perhaps, been reviewed in previous threads.

A genetic study was done in 2007 that definitively identified the domestic cat's ancestor as the African Wild Cat. Furthermore, it showed that our beloved housecat is virtually indistinguishable, genetically, from today's African Wild Cats (The Near Eastern Origin of Cat Domestication).

Charles Darwin's Origin of Species was written back in 1859, long and long before we knew the domestic cat's true lineage. We don't know to what he was comparing the domestic cat against with his remarks. And even were he referring directly to the African Wild Cat, a "may be related to scavenging scraps" written in 1859 and unsubstantiated by any other work to this day can't be given much weight.

In any case, the differences he notes are of a morphological nature and unrelated to digestive physiology (as the The Evolution of House Cats referenced in the link above clearly indicates).

Similarly, that cats are willing to eat from garbage cans doesn't mean the foods they're eating are satisfying their nutritional needs, or that they have evolved to adopt to a different diet - that's behavior modification only, nothing more.

Cats, as a species, have one of the shortest comparative digestive tracts in the entire animal kingdom. That there "may be" differences between sub-species means nothing with respect to their dietary requirements; their digestive physiology has evolved into a beautiful and efficient system built for processing one thing - raw animal meats.

Best regards.

AC

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaxKitteh 

Cats have been domesticated anywhere from 8000-9500 years based on where you get your info, and evolution has been working for millions of years. So, even allowing for scavenging feral cats or housecats, 9500 years is nothing in the realm of the evolutionary timescale. 

Actually, you are wrong,  cats are a short lifespan, high offspring, quickly reproducing species for which 9000 years represents a tremendous period for dietary adaptation.  One need only witness the various physical adaptations in domesticated dogs to their primarily gray wolf ancestors as evidence of this.   Nearly 40% of the world's population (98% of Western Europe) has biologically adapted to digest lactose sugars in milk by producing the lactase enzyme, which is believed to have occurred over a relatively short time period just a few thousand years ago, and humans are a long-lived and slowly reproducing species which allows for far less genetic variation compared to felines.   And yes, of course a Westerner that has genetically adapted to produce lactase is not very genetically different from a Japanese heritage person that has not, but that small difference is enough to affect the decision as to whether or not dairy products are a healthy part of a diet.   So "its evolution, duh" is not a valid argument without supporting evidence comparing and contrasting diets.

However, this is beside the point as this thread is looking to consolidate actual Scientific Studies that support raw advocate claims.   Without studies to support the claims, they are groundless hearsay, and a broad claim of "evolution" doesn't negate the scientific studies that indicate contamination risks for raw industrially farmed meat.    

Take an example of raw eggs.   If you were to poll most people they would tell you that raw eggs are a superior protein source to cooked eggs, contamination risk aside.   But when you look at actual scientific studies, we see this is not the case at all and popular media (movies like Rocky) are to blame:

*Cooked egg protein is 40% more bioavailable than raw eggs: http://jn.nutrition.org/content/128/10/1716.abstract

*Cooking eggs increases healthy phytochemical levels including the known beneficial anti-oxidant lycopene

*Raw eggs contain the protein avidin which binds to biotin not only in the source food but other stomach contents and limits the body's ability to absorb vitamins:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avidin

That is why it is important to separate SCIENTIFIC fact with supporting studies to hearsay and anecdotal evidence.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by LDG 


But where are the scientific studies that indicate the kibble or canned food diets are beneficial?
Like I said... the focus of DIET tends to be nutritional requirements, not delivery (cooked vs raw). I think MaxKitteh's point is valid. We know for SURE cats will not thrive on an all cooked non-supplemented diet - they'll die of taurine deficiency.

1) The is outside the scope of this thread, and a diversionary tactic to avoid the fact that raw advocate claims are almost all unsupported hearsay.

2) There are various scientific studies that demonstrate that ecoli, salmonella, and other harmful bacteria are destroyed by sufficient application of heat, an obvious advantage to cooking.

3) We have scientific studies that verify that supplemented cooked food is nutritionally complete, thanks to FDA/AAFCO feed trials on large numbers of cats (addressing concerns of taurine deficiency for example) for over 40 years.  

4) We have large scale peer reviewed scientific studies (38,776 cats and dogs) that demonstrate the beneficial dental effect of some kibble showing dental disease was "significantly more absent", however, raw advocates frequently make the same claims regarding raw food but with no such supporting studies, making the claim groundless and worse yet make claims AGAINST commercial foods in direct opposition to real scientific studies.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carolina 


IMHO again, owners experiences have been discounter here as unsupported hearsay. IMHO those should count as statistics.
to your #3 - read the very bottom of that paper you posted yourself:
"In summary, the rules for the feeding trial appear very loose. The food being
tested must merely keep 6 out of 8 seemingly healthy dogs/cats alive for 6
months, without them losing more than 15% of their initial body weight, and
without the average of 4 certain blood values falling below minimum levels. Most
nutritional deficiencies or excesses will not be apparent within a brief 6 month
period, as they tend to take much longer to develop. It certainly seems that the
AAFCO Feeding Trial leaves a lot to be desired, as far as confirming the safety
and reliability of pet foods!"
To #4: That is not an independent study - it is funded by IAMS/ Procter and Gambler. Please post independent Studies.

Fine, you have very small-scale statistics.   Do you admit that raw advocate claims have no scientific studies to back them?

They do not take 40 years to develop, so you have a long track history to substantiate AAFCO nutrient profile guidelines.   These are also backed by scientific studies from the AMVA, the same linked in the other thread that demonstrated the severe nutritional deficiencies and excesses that are proven through testing to prove harmful for long-term feeding.    Even if you don't care for the testing methodology, where are the scientific tests that demonstrate the benefit of raw feeding as an alternative?

And again, wrong, it is an independent study, partially funded by IAMS that sells vast amounts of wet food, and as demonstrated in the other threads holds a higher profit margin than dry.   So the claims of "oh it must be biased against wet" are unsubstantiated and would also be a conspiracy far too vast to be feasible considering the number of veterinary offices, Universities, hospitals, and others participating in the massive scientific peer-reviewed trial that was not conducted by any IAMS staff.    Now back to the point, raw advocates frequently claim that raw food is beneficial for dental health... now where are the studies that back up this claim with actual testing?