Vet student discussing grain-free and raw foods

[pinkdagger]

 
Getting this thread back on track, have there been any more PMs? 

Sorry - I was out of town for the weekend and hadn't been on a computer. I just signed in and we have no new messages on Reddit. I'll check back every few days in case the OP there finishes finals and decides to come back for more discussion.

 

[jclark]

"I'll need more time to reply to this properly, but some food for thought for starters: you should be careful about correlating these disease facts to being caused by processed foods. Cats in the wild don't typically live longer than 3-4 years, so we don't see diseases like diabetes and dental disease and kidney problems because they don't live long enough to get them!"


Um, no. African Wildcats are virtually identical genetically to the domestic cat ( http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/06/070628-cat-ancestor.html ). African Wildcats have an average lifespan of 15 years. Cats in the wild in urban and suburban settings have short lifespans because it isn't safe - not because of diet. http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Felis_silvestris/ Their natural diet serves African Wildcats just fine.


As a vet tech, she should have access to JAVMA. This article is only access via payment: Zoran & Buffington 2011. "Effects of nutrition choices and lifestyle changes on the well-being of cats, a carnivore that has moved indoors," J Am Vet Med Assoc. 2011 Sep 1;239(5):596-606. http://avmajournals.avma.org/doi/ab...id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub=pubmed


A quote from the article


"Fortunately for cats, their current preeminence as pets has resulted in substantial improvements in their general health and life expectancy. Protecting them from their natural predators (larger carnivores and primates) and providing preventative medical care to decrease their risk of illness from infectious diseases has increased the average lifespan of cats from 4.5 years (which is typical of an outdoor cat) to nearly 15 years. However, despite these benefits, this crepuscular carnivore has been removed from a free-roaming, active existence to a captive, indoor,

sedentary one. Cats have gone from frequent consumption of small meals that consisted of animals they could catch and kill to consumption of prepared diets of human choosing, which are often available in excessive amounts and consist of less protein and a wider variety of protein,

fat, and carbohydrates than is found in wild birds, insects, and small rodents. Cats are one of the few true carnivores humans have attempted to domesticate. People also have attempted to get cats to adapt to human lifestyles and preferences, which sometimes leads to a failure to recognize or understand the perils of domestication and its effects on feline behavior, well-being, and health. As a result, there is increasing evidence that many of the chronic health problems of domestic cats are directly or indirectly related to nutrition or lifestyle changes that have been imposed on them by their owners (Table 1)." p. 596


Winn Feline summary: http://winnfelinehealth.blogspot.com/2012/03/cats-nutrition-and-lifestyle-choices.html

Your article supports the tech's statement. First comparing a wild african cat with little chance of being preyed upon to a domestic is an apples-to-oranges comparison because lifespan largely depends on their physical environment, and physical size absent some other advantage an animal has against being preyed upon (flight for example).

Large North American wild cats have an estimated life span of 10-12 years in the wild. Compared to a potential predator these animals are big, fast, can climb trees quickly and can inflict serious damage.

Domestic cats simply just can't make it long enough in the wild before a Coyote, Wolf, Wild Dog, Snake gets the best of them. There are just too many predators that they have to avoid. A grain free, raw diet doesn't help in this regard.

 

[ldg]

Domestic cats simply just can't make it long enough in the wild before a Coyote, Wolf, Wild Dog, Snake gets the best of them. There are just too many predators that they have to avoid. A grain free, raw diet doesn't help in this regard.

Yes, the ONLY point I was trying to get at is that it is NOT diet that is accounting for longer life, it is cats being inside that is the biggest contributor.

 

[ldg]

And I read Dr. Becker's page, which has a similar approach and seems to focus on real meat (raw and cooked) VS. kibble, with kibble being the bad guy.

:lol3: Yes, as Dr. Becker points out, the study was funded by the pet food industry (including Natura as a sponsor - owned by P&G at the time. ).

 

[goholistic]

Yes, as Dr. Becker points out, the study was funded by the pet food industry (including Natura as a sponsor - owned by P&G at the time.

).

  I'm confused. I thought the purpose of providing the study and Dr. Becker's write-up on the study in post # 58 was to show that raw was more digestible (although, my point is that raw and cooked are referenced together in comparison to kibble).

But now it sounds like the study is being discounted because it was sponsored by the pet food industry.  

I'm just trying to understand how you are interpreting the information.

 

[ldg]

:scratch: I'm confused. I thought the purpose of providing the study and Dr. Becker's write-up on the study in post # 58 was to show that raw was more digestible (although, my point is that raw and cooked are referenced together in comparison to kibble).

No. I'm not sure why you think that. :dk: As I pointed out in my post, the study shows raw to be only slightly more digestible. The issue is that the OP of the "grain free" thingy on Reddit posted information about the energetic significance of cooking by sharing a study done on cooked vs raw foods fed to Burmese Pythons. I pointed out there was no need to turn to Pythons, a study existed for cats. (And who really cares about "energetic significance only?) That was the point of the study - it was done in cats (and it included information about digestibility/bioavailability).

Though why use the snake study when there is a study in cats, comparing raw meat, cooked meat, and extruded diets: http://www.2ndchance.info/homemadediets-Kerr2012.pdf

I pointed out in that post

Cooking and raw were roughly the same (you can see in the table, the raw was more digestible)

??????


Yes, I discount the value of the study done - rather - the way it is discussed and presented - because it was funded by the pet food industry.

But in the end, all of the studies out there indicate that cooked (meaning canned, not extruded kibble) is roughly comparable to raw, usually with raw being slightly more digestible/bioavailable. Of course, I'm sure ingredients and ingredient quality have a role in that. It does not appear that commercial canned was used in the study, rather a specially formulated cooked. I assume home-cooked is quite comparable to raw in terms of bioavailability, and that ingredient quality in commercial canned foods will differ. My (main) personal issue with cooked vs raw is the intangibles we don't know.

 

[goholistic]

Ah, I see. Thanks for clarifying!

 

[denice]

I hate to burst your bubble here but your vet is correct at least about evidence based medicine.  That doesn't mean that she is wrong but like with many holistic ideas and remedies there has not been studies done to prove that the claims made are true or studies that have been done have been inconclusive.  This does technically put what she says in the realm of opinion rather than science, an educated opinion, but still an opinion,

I personally take a middle ground.  I do look at holistic ideas but I also take my kitties to a conventional vet and listen to what conventional medicine says.

 

[Willowy]

Unfortunately, there is no "evidence-based medicine" when it comes to diet :dk:. So ask your vet friend which foods have been independently studied (not by the company that sells it!) and proven to make cats healthier . Spoiler: there aren't any. There have just been so few diet-based studies in cats, and the ones that do exist are only looking at one aspect of the diet (digestibility, for instance), not the effect on overall health. It was only in the 1990s (I think) that they figured out that propylene glycol is bad for cats and they only discovered the need for taurine not long before that. So I suspect there are still some things we don't know.

When it comes to diet, for you and your pet, the only evidence you can go by is how you/your cat does on that diet. And of course you need to develop an eye for what indicates your cat isn't doing well on a particular diet--- frequent vomiting is not normal for cats, but it's weird how many cat owners think it is normal.