Please read this if you feed or recommend dry food for cats.

Feeding Your Cat: Know the Basics of Feline Nutrition
By Lisa A. Pierson, DVM
http://www.catinfo.org

Diet is the brick and mortar of health. This web page lays out some often-ignored principles of feline nutrition and explains why cats have a better chance at optimal health if they are fed a quality canned food diet instead of dry kibble. Putting a little thought into what you feed your cat(s) can pay big dividends over their lifetime and very possibly help them avoid serious, painful and costly illnesses. An increasing number of American Veterinary Medical Association members, including board-certified veterinary nutritionists, are now strongly recommending the feeding of canned food instead of dry kibble.

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Diabetes: Diabetes is a very serious – and difficult to manage – disease that is very common in cats. Why is it so common? The species-inappropriate high level of carbohydrates in dry food wreaks havoc on the blood sugar level of an obligate carnivore. The blood sugar level rises significantly upon ingestion of dry food. With chronic hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas down-regulate, or “burn out,” leading to diabetes.

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Kidney Failure: Kidney disease is probably the leading cause of mortality in the cat. It is troubling to think about the role that chronic dehydration may play in feline kidney failure. And remember, cats are chronically dehydrated when they are on a diet of predominantly dry food. The prescription dry 'renal diets' such as Science Diet k/d - which is commonly prescribed by veterinarians - contain only a small amount of moisture leaving your cat in a less than optimal state of water balance. I must say that I find it truly amazing when I hear about the very large numbers of cats receiving subcutaneous fluids while being maintained on a diet of dry food. This is extremely illogical and every attempt should be made to get these cats on a diet that contains a higher moisture content.

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Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD): IBD is thought to be a common cause of vomiting and diarrhea in the cat. There are many unanswered questions with respect to this disease process, but it seems logical to start to “treat” a gastrointestinal problem in the cat with a species-appropriate diet. Too often these cats are treated with a high level of steroids and a so-called “prescription” grain-laden, dry food diet. I feel very strongly that this common therapeutic regimen needs to be re-evaluated. There are an impressive number of anecdotal reports of cats that were terribly ill with IBD exhibiting dramatic improvement when ALL dry food was removed from their diet. Taking it even one step further, there are many reports of cats with IBD that improved tremendously on a balanced, grainless, raw-meat diet without any vegetables added. (See www.catnutrition.org for more information.)

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Obesity: Obesity is an extremely common and very serious health problem in cats. For instance, overweight cats are four times more likely to develop diabetes than cats that are at an optimal weight. Obligate carnivores are designed to meet their energy needs with a high protein, moderate fat diet with little to no carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are minimally used for energy and those that are not used are converted to and stored as fat. The so-called “light” diets that are on the market have targeted the fat content as the nutrient to be decreased, but in doing so, the pet food manufacturers have increased the grain fraction, leading to a higher level of carbohydrates. Hence, many overweight cats eating these diets are still obese. These "light" products are among the most species-inappropriate, unhealthy diets available to cat caretakers. Many caretakers feed very small amounts of these diets hoping that their cat will lose weight but feeding a small amount of a diet that is inappropriate for the species is NOT the answer! The caretaker simply ends up with a crabby, overweight cat.

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I enthusiastically endorse the principles laid out in Anne's letter and strongly urge my veterinary colleagues to consider what it has to say. As a practicing veterinarian whose eyes have been opened in recent years to the illogical practice of feeding a high carbohydrate, water-depleted dry food diet to obligate carnivores, I am increasingly disheartened by many of my colleagues who continue to (at best) disregard or (at worst) ridicule the growing body of scientific data that validates common sense when it comes to feeding carnivores.

-- Lisa Pierson, DVM