Diabetes Info

[lulubaby00]

Hello.  I'll tell you what my vet, who is a cat-only specialist, told me when my cat with similar issues was also diagnosed with diabetes.  First, for a cat with diabetes, they should be fed no dry food at all, not even treats.  She told me that it is very hard to control diabetes even with insulin if the cat is on dry food at all.  Secondly, I was told and now it is true, that all prescription diets are unsuitable for diabetic cats because they are all high in carbs.  I found this out because my cat was on hill's w/d for flutd while she developed diabetes and they could not get it under control until about 2 weeks after being off of that food.  I asked how that is since technically the w/d is not for flutd (although it does control it) but it is actually supposed to be FOR diabetic cats.  My vet told me that until recently they believed that prescription foods high in fiber, regardless of carb content could be used to treat diabetes successfully and they now know that is not true.  She also told me that half of all cats with diabetes can be controlled through diet ALONE with no insulin, but that is only when they are on canned, low carb food.  Once I took my cat off the prescription food and switched her to an over the counter, low carb cat food she no longer needed her insulin.  She has been controlled strictly through diet alone for many months now and she had actually developed ketones when first diagnosed (While on the prescription diabetic food) as well as fatty liver.  Here is a great chart you can use to look up carb content of cat foods.  You can see for yourself that the prescription diets (at the very end o the chart) are ALL extremely high in carbs, even the canned foods.  Believe it or not, fancy feast classics (ONLY the classics, not the others) are very low in carbs.  My cat now eats that along with wellness pate (again- ONLY the pate is low in carb).  You want to stay under 10% carbs on the chart (the prescription foods are all 20s and 30s and are unsuitable). The last thing my vet told me is not to feed a diabetic cat any canned food with gravy.  The gravy foods are always higher in carbs.  And obviously you want to avoid carbs from wheat, corn and soy as well.  Hope this helps as much as it helped me!

http://www.catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf