Saturday, October 10, 2009

Food Choices for Dogs

March 29, 2010
Recently I ran across a good article on PetMD regarding food intolerance and the elimination diet for dogs, so shall include it here.

October 9, 2009
There isn't a great deal of information online for dogs, but what I find in the way of scientific papers and studies I will report here:

A general paper for both cats and dogs is, "Diet and Skin Disease in Cats and Dogs" Then there is a paper that looks into digestive system type irritants called, "The nutritional management of gastrointestinal tract disorders in companion animals ".  That one requires payment to see beyond the abstract. There is a general outline for the paper, "Essentials of nutrition in dogs and cats with gastrointestinal disease " or you can order the full text through the British Veterinary Association.  The first link has a number of other article reviews that may be of interest to you as well.

One of the Pioneers who taught us about "gluten free" information was Dicke, whose paper is outlined in "GUT" showing that wheat, rye, and barley are the culprits. The grains involved in gluten sensitivity are also listed in the article "A Non-Human Primate Model for Gluten Sensitivity" One of the animals studied was a dog.  If you do a search through the paper you will find NO reference to corn at all......

If you are looking for intolerance caused by corn, that would more likely be another common allergen called "fructose" that can cause a couple of digestive issues.  One problem is malabsorption, and the other is fructose intolerance.  This is an important differentiation as your pet may also have other sensitivities to ingredients such as molasses that can be learned about in the article called, "Metabolic effects of dietary fructose".  To clear up the misunderstanding, here, Dicke obviously understood that the term "gluten" was a misnomer when it comes to "corn gluten meal", and one has to dig a little further into the ingredient list to find the problem such as a listing of just "corn" or "corn syrop" or "fructose" in any form.  As I have stated on other sites, "corn gluten meal" is in actual fact a corn protein.

One study that covers an ingredient I always look for in pet foods is "Diet and Large Intestinal Disease in Dogs and Cats". What I look for is either beet pulp or rice bran as an ingredient in pet foods, and this article helps explain why I would do this.

Please post your food suggestions here under the "comments" section, and possibly the reason why it works in your situation over other foods.  Thanks for taking the time.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Gluten free diet is most important for the gluten free sensitivity. In this disease we find different types of system such as allergies, heart burn, depression, chronic fatigue and intestinal problem etc. That time we should use gluten free diet and RapeSeed Meal Manufacturers also provide gluten free product for the pats.

Pat said...

Karnani, please show the scientific data to support your claims? I do it on my blogs and expect as much respect in return.

When it comes to dogs, the highest percentage of food intolerances that aren't protein, (normal food triggers), comes from corn ingredients. This "gluten free" thing is the latest fad with NO science to back it. If you have some, please provide it as I do understand I am not omnipotent, just educated on pet issues.