Omega 3 fatty acids question?

haycat

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I got fish oil supplements for my cat to provide EPA and DHA. Didn't go for flaxseed oil, since I read cats can't utilize its ALA (cats can't convert much ALA to EPA and DHA). However I found AAFCO lists ALA in their cat food nutrient profiles table for growth & reproduction, and the recommended amount is higher than EPA+DHA combined.

http://www.aafco.org/Portals/0/Site...osed_Revisions_to_AAFCO_Nutrient_Profiles.pdf

Does anyone know why they list more ALA than EPA and DHA combined? Is ALA in fact essential, actually more important than EPA and DHA? Thanks in advance! 
 
 

Anne

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I really don't know but I have a hunch our @LDG   might. Laurie, any ideas?
 
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haycat

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Thank you very much for your help Anne!
 I'm learning a lot at your website. And thanks in advance to LDG if you come to this thread!

I've been looking for the answer to this for some time now... no idea. If cats actually need more ALA, flaxseed oil should also be recommended in addition to fish oil, but I'm sure cats in the wild don't eat plants such as flaxseed...
 

mschauer

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Cats have limited ability to convert ALA to DHA but can convert ALA to other beneficial fatty acids.

BTW - Few cats in the wild eat fish either. 
 

momto3cats

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Cats in the wild eat prey that probably has a more balanced ratio of fatty acids than our farm raised meat animals, because of their diet. So they don't need fish oil to balance the other fats.
 
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haycat

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Thanks a lot mschauer and momto3cats! 
 
Originally Posted by mschauer  

Cats have limited ability to convert ALA to DHA but can convert ALA to other beneficial fatty acids.
Does this mean cats can benefit from consuming flaxseed oil? If that's the case, I'll add flaxseed oil in addition to fish oil. 

Originally Posted by momto3cats  

Cats in the wild eat prey that probably has a more balanced ratio of fatty acids than our farm raised meat animals, because of their diet.
As momto3cats says, farm raised animals lack omega 3 fatty acids compared to omega 6. So unlike wild cats, our cats benefit from omega 3 supplements. Fish oil is good since it contains DHA, but I wonder if they benefit from flaxseed oil too if they need ALA...

Flaxseed: mainly a source of ALA, cats don't eat it in the wild
Fish: mainly a source of EPA and DHA, cats don't eat it in the wild
Prey animal: source of ???

Prey animals stock DHA in their brain and skin, but they also may have some EPA, ALA, or other omega 3s. Since prey animals consume ALA by eating seeds, they may still have ALA or its converted forms in their body, to be consumed by cats.

If prey animals contain more ALA or its converted forms than EPA and DHA, then I understand why AAFCO lists higher amount of ALA for growth & reproduction. But I haven't been able to find sufficient nutritional data to support this, since prey animals aren't popular as human food 
 And I think not many people supplement ALA when they feed raw. So it's been confusing... 
 
 
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mschauer

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What are you trying to achieve by adding either fish oil or flaxseed oil to your cats diet? Whether a cat would benefit from having either fish oil or flaxseed oil added to their food would depend on whether the food is deficient in something the oil provides.All pet foods sold in the US that carry the AAFCO label must already meet or exceed the AAFCO recommendations for fatty acids unless they are labelled as being for supplemental feeding only. There is no need to add anything. 

BTW - I have the 2014 AAFCO publication and none of the nutrient tables show a requirement at for ALA. Where did you see otherwise?
 
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haycat

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What are you trying to achieve by adding either fish oil or flaxseed oil to your cats diet? Whether a cat would benefit from having either fish oil or flaxseed oil added to their food would depend on whether the food is deficient in something the oil provides.
I feed homemade raw (prey model),  so I want to mimic their natural prey animal as closely as possible to avoid any nutritional deficiency.

I use farm raised meat, meaty bones, and organs like others. These items lack omega 3 fatty acid compared to meat from wild animals. Omega 6 fatty acid derives from grains, while omega 3 comes from green leaves and algae. So grain-fed farm animals are loaded with far more omega 6 than omega 3. This balance is different from that of wild caught meat, so we supplement omega 3 to correct the omega 6 : omega 3 ratio.

I chose fish oil because it contains EPA and DHA, and most raw food recipes recommended the addition of fish oil. Though flaxseed oil isn't usually recommended, I'm not sure if it's better to add ALA from flaxseed oil too. ALA is one of the omega 3s, so farm raised meat should lack in ALA too. If cats can utilize ALA as you say, cats may benefit from the added flaxseed oil.
 
All pet foods sold in the US that carry the AAFCO label must already meet or exceed the AAFCO recommendations for fatty acids unless they are labelled as being for supplemental feeding only. There is no need to add anything. 

BTW - I have the 2014 AAFCO publication and none of the nutrient tables show a requirement at for ALA. Where did you see otherwise?
It seems AAFCO listed only omega 6 fatty acids (Linoleic acid, Arachidonic acid) in 2008.

AAFCO Cat Food Nutrient Profiles Published in 2008

http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=1+2244&aid=657

I don't know what they listed in 2009-2013. More recent studies revealed omega 3 fatty acids are essential too, so they seem to have at least discussed adding those to their nutrient profiles table.

Essential fatty acid metabolism in dogs and cats

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1516-35982008001300004

Proposed Revisions Edited per Comments for 2014 Official Publication

http://www.aafco.org/Portals/0/Site...osed_Revisions_to_AAFCO_Nutrient_Profiles.pdf

The link to AAFCO above says "proposed revisions", so it may be different from their actual publication. They list alpha-Linolenic acid(ALA), Eicosapentaenoic + Docosahexaenoic acid (EPA + DHA) in AAFCO cat food nutrient profiles table. In this table they recommend 0.02% ALA and 0.012% EPA + DHA for cats at growth & reproduction stage as dry matter basis. More ALA than EPA + DHA. For cats at adult maintenance stage, their recommended amount is ND (not determined). So they still don't know the exact amount of ALA or EPA + DHA adult cats require.

So you have the 2014 AAFCO publication? Wish I had too! As  I don't have one, I didn't know they didn't list ALA in their book. Maybe they'll list it in the future, or another study suggested cats didn't need ALA... 


And it's time for me to consider purchasing AAFCO book 
 I've been interested since I wanted to learn more about nutrition, but I was being lazy 
 
 
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mschauer

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You probably don't want the AAFCO publication which is the book that has the nutrient tables. It covers All AAFCO information with regards to animal feeds. The section on pet foods is only a tiny part of it. You might find the FEDIAF guidelines more useful. The FEDIAF is the European equivalent of the AAFCO but they make their publications available free online. They update their recommendations far more frequently than the AAFCO and their publication is far more readable. There are slight differences between the AAFCO and the FEDIAF recommendations but since the FEDIAF update theirs  more often I lean towards using theirs.

http://www.fediaf.org/fileadmin/use...Analytical_Science/Nutritional_guidelines.pdf

I didn't realize you are feeding a raw diet. In the future you might want to post to the Raw & Home-Cooked Cat Food forum when you have a question about raw feeding. Given that context I understand now what you are doing. When raw feeders add fish oil they are most interested in the EPA and DHA omega-3s. Studies have shown those to be 2 of the more beneficial omega 3s. But, there is no conclusive evidence of how much of those omega 3s or of any other omega 3s (including ALA) might actually be beneficial. We focus on EPA and DHA only because more is known about them. 

The 2014 proposed revisions are very interesting with regards to fatty acids. It shows they are considering a recommended omega 6 to omega 3 ratio for the first time. Note in that document that they include ALA in the proposed ratio. The ratio is higher (30:1) than what I typically target (more like 10:1) but there really isn't a lot known for sure about how optimal fatty acid balance.   Scratch that - I was looking at the dog table.

So, in summary, raw feeders are mostly looking for the EPA and DHA that is found in fish ( and krill) oil. But that isn't to say that the ALA found in flaxseed oil isn't useful. There just isn't as much information available with regards to supplementing a diet with it. I believe commercial products claim that flaxseed oil improves coat quality for what ever that is worth.
 
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haycat

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Thanks for the great information mschauer! 
 The FEDIAF recommendations should be very useful. Hope AAFCO begins to post and update their publication online too someday!

And thanks for telling me what AAFCO covers in their book. Then lucky for me I waited...
 It's not that I'm not interested in other animals, but I don't have enough time to read about other kinds of feed,  as I still have so much to learn about cat...

Now I see why they don't usually supplement ALA. If there are still few studies on ALA, the best thing for now would be try supplementing a small amount of flaxseed oil and see if it benefits my cat. If it makes no change or causes some detrimental effect, I could discontinue flaxseed oil. Of course it's only about my cat, so other cats may react differently...

In the paper to which I gave the link, only DHA is recommended for adult cats and the required amount isn't established. The FEDIAF recommendation doesn't have recommended minimum for either ALA or EPA + DHA. Omega 3s may help cats in many ways, but it doesn't seem highly likely adult cats die of the deficiency.

And yes, I began to wonder if I should have posted this to Raw & Home-Cooked forum
 Since I was the freshest newbie in this forum at that time, for some reason I posted this in Cat Nutrition forum (maybe because the title said omega 3). I should have explained what I was up to in the first place! But glad I got the answer 
 Thank you!
 
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