Hill's Feline S/D, Hill's Feline CD-S

From: (Liz)
Date: 10/22/03 7:55 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

Perhaps because FLUTD is one of the most confusing disease
conditions there is?

For you it must be totally uncomprehensible.


....and you promised never to respone to any of my posts again (and this one
wasn't even directed at you). Goes to show how much of what you say can be
trusted!

In article ,
(GAUBSTER2) wrote:

If your cat has a struvite or oxalate problem then you would want a food
that
either alkanized (sp?) or acidified the urinary Ph. No?


I didn't get a response from you on this. Certainly diet is one component to
try to effectively manage FLUTD, not the only component.

I believe the term is boggle. I responded thoroughly and in-depth to
this comment. Let me reiterate.

My Cat Has BOTH a Struvite AND Oxalate Problem. I want a food that
NEITHER excessively alkalinizes OR acidifies the urinary pH. Is that
clear?

I'm not proposing a treatment protocol for any individual cat. I'm simply
questioning the reasoning used by Waltham and IVD that a "one size fits all"
food can succesfully manage FLUTD. Simple as that.

My cat's dietary therapy is a "one size fits all" food, though not a
prescription diet. Per your argument, this is impossible. Fortunately it
only takes one counterexample to disprove a theory. Therefore you are
WRONG and it IS possible to effectively manage several faces of FLUTD
with one dietary approach. Whether Waltham's and IVD are as effective as
what my cat eats now, I don't know, because it ain't broke and I don't
plan to fix it.

-Alison in OH

In article ,
(GAUBSTER2) wrote:

If your cat has a struvite or oxalate problem then you would want a food
that
either alkanized (sp?) or acidified the urinary Ph. No?


I didn't get a response from you on this. Certainly diet is one component to
try to effectively manage FLUTD, not the only component.

I believe the term is boggle. I responded thoroughly and in-depth to
this comment. Let me reiterate.

My Cat Has BOTH a Struvite AND Oxalate Problem. I want a food that
NEITHER excessively alkalinizes OR acidifies the urinary pH. Is that
clear?

I'm not proposing a treatment protocol for any individual cat. I'm simply
questioning the reasoning used by Waltham and IVD that a "one size fits all"
food can succesfully manage FLUTD. Simple as that.

My cat's dietary therapy is a "one size fits all" food, though not a
prescription diet. Per your argument, this is impossible. Fortunately it
only takes one counterexample to disprove a theory. Therefore you are
WRONG and it IS possible to effectively manage several faces of FLUTD
with one dietary approach. Whether Waltham's and IVD are as effective as
what my cat eats now, I don't know, because it ain't broke and I don't
plan to fix it.

-Alison in OH

Alison Perera wrote in message ...

My cat's dietary therapy is a "one size fits all" food, though not a
prescription diet. Per your argument, this is impossible. Fortunately it
only takes one counterexample to disprove a theory. Therefore you are
WRONG and it IS possible to effectively manage several faces of FLUTD
with one dietary approach. Whether Waltham's and IVD are as effective as
what my cat eats now, I don't know, because it ain't broke and I don't
plan to fix it.


Actually it's a bit more complicated than just the urine pH. Lots more
complicated. Prescription Diet Feline cd-oxl (which will soon change
it's name to Feline x/d, same product, just less confusion in the
name) canned version can be used for both struvite and CaOx stone
formers.

To determine if a food will work for more than one form of crystal it
is necessary to do what is called Activity Product Ratio studies.
APR's take a look at *all* the biological processes that contribute to
the formation of crystals. In a simplified explanation it works this
way. A group of cats are fed the test food over a period of time. The
urine is taken and placed in an incubator with a 1 gm crystal of the
type (struvite, CaOx, bru****e, urate, cystine etc) being tested
suspended in the urine. So if you are testing for stuvite you suspend
a 1 gm crystal of struvite in the urine. Incubate and then measure the
crystal size. If the crystal has lost weight you have created a urine
with all the biological factors considered that will not support the
growth of a struvite. Prescription Diet Feline c/d-oxl canned can
indeed be fed to both CaOx formers and struvite formers.

APR studies are substantially different than Relative Super
Saturationwhich does not measure all possible biological outcomes. As
a general rule the things you need to do to reduce one type, are in
opposition to what you need to do to keep another stone out. Stuvites
- lower urine pH to 6.2-6.4, reduce magnesium, phosphorus, In contrast
for CaOx stones we need to increase magnesium increase urine pH
slightly to a still acidic 6.6-6.8 and reduce calcium intake. In most
case you cannot do these opposing things at the same time. Thus what
we understand about srystal formation is not yet complete. There are
definitely other biological factors involved that we don't yet
understand. For this reason the APR studies are very beneficial.

Alison Perera wrote in message ...

My cat's dietary therapy is a "one size fits all" food, though not a
prescription diet. Per your argument, this is impossible. Fortunately it
only takes one counterexample to disprove a theory. Therefore you are
WRONG and it IS possible to effectively manage several faces of FLUTD
with one dietary approach. Whether Waltham's and IVD are as effective as
what my cat eats now, I don't know, because it ain't broke and I don't
plan to fix it.


Actually it's a bit more complicated than just the urine pH. Lots more
complicated. Prescription Diet Feline cd-oxl (which will soon change
it's name to Feline x/d, same product, just less confusion in the
name) canned version can be used for both struvite and CaOx stone
formers.

To determine if a food will work for more than one form of crystal it
is necessary to do what is called Activity Product Ratio studies.
APR's take a look at *all* the biological processes that contribute to
the formation of crystals. In a simplified explanation it works this
way. A group of cats are fed the test food over a period of time. The
urine is taken and placed in an incubator with a 1 gm crystal of the
type (struvite, CaOx, bru****e, urate, cystine etc) being tested
suspended in the urine. So if you are testing for stuvite you suspend
a 1 gm crystal of struvite in the urine. Incubate and then measure the
crystal size. If the crystal has lost weight you have created a urine
with all the biological factors considered that will not support the
growth of a struvite. Prescription Diet Feline c/d-oxl canned can
indeed be fed to both CaOx formers and struvite formers.

APR studies are substantially different than Relative Super
Saturationwhich does not measure all possible biological outcomes. As
a general rule the things you need to do to reduce one type, are in
opposition to what you need to do to keep another stone out. Stuvites
- lower urine pH to 6.2-6.4, reduce magnesium, phosphorus, In contrast
for CaOx stones we need to increase magnesium increase urine pH
slightly to a still acidic 6.6-6.8 and reduce calcium intake. In most
case you cannot do these opposing things at the same time. Thus what
we understand about srystal formation is not yet complete. There are
definitely other biological factors involved that we don't yet
understand. For this reason the APR studies are very beneficial.

Thanks, Steve for the clarification.

Actually it's a bit more complicated than just the urine pH. Lots more
complicated. Prescription Diet Feline cd-oxl (which will soon change
it's name to Feline x/d, same product, just less confusion in the
name) canned version can be used for both struvite and CaOx stone
formers.

To determine if a food will work for more than one form of crystal it
is necessary to do what is called Activity Product Ratio studies.
APR's take a look at *all* the biological processes that contribute to
the formation of crystals. In a simplified explanation it works this
way. A group of cats are fed the test food over a period of time. The
urine is taken and placed in an incubator with a 1 gm crystal of the
type (struvite, CaOx, bru****e, urate, cystine etc) being tested
suspended in the urine. So if you are testing for stuvite you suspend
a 1 gm crystal of struvite in the urine. Incubate and then measure the
crystal size. If the crystal has lost weight you have created a urine
with all the biological factors considered that will not support the
growth of a struvite. Prescription Diet Feline c/d-oxl canned can
indeed be fed to both CaOx formers and struvite formers.

APR studies are substantially different than Relative Super
Saturationwhich does not measure all possible biological outcomes. As
a general rule the things you need to do to reduce one type, are in
opposition to what you need to do to keep another stone out. Stuvites
- lower urine pH to 6.2-6.4, reduce magnesium, phosphorus, In contrast
for CaOx stones we need to increase magnesium increase urine pH
slightly to a still acidic 6.6-6.8 and reduce calcium intake. In most
case you cannot do these opposing things at the same time. Thus what
we understand about srystal formation is not yet complete. There are
definitely other biological factors involved that we don't yet
understand. For this reason the APR studies are very beneficial.

Thanks, Steve for the clarification.

Actually it's a bit more complicated than just the urine pH. Lots more
complicated. Prescription Diet Feline cd-oxl (which will soon change
it's name to Feline x/d, same product, just less confusion in the
name) canned version can be used for both struvite and CaOx stone
formers.

To determine if a food will work for more than one form of crystal it
is necessary to do what is called Activity Product Ratio studies.
APR's take a look at *all* the biological processes that contribute to
the formation of crystals. In a simplified explanation it works this
way. A group of cats are fed the test food over a period of time. The
urine is taken and placed in an incubator with a 1 gm crystal of the
type (struvite, CaOx, bru****e, urate, cystine etc) being tested
suspended in the urine. So if you are testing for stuvite you suspend
a 1 gm crystal of struvite in the urine. Incubate and then measure the
crystal size. If the crystal has lost weight you have created a urine
with all the biological factors considered that will not support the
growth of a struvite. Prescription Diet Feline c/d-oxl canned can
indeed be fed to both CaOx formers and struvite formers.

APR studies are substantially different than Relative Super
Saturationwhich does not measure all possible biological outcomes. As
a general rule the things you need to do to reduce one type, are in
opposition to what you need to do to keep another stone out. Stuvites
- lower urine pH to 6.2-6.4, reduce magnesium, phosphorus, In contrast
for CaOx stones we need to increase magnesium increase urine pH
slightly to a still acidic 6.6-6.8 and reduce calcium intake. In most
case you cannot do these opposing things at the same time. Thus what
we understand about srystal formation is not yet complete. There are
definitely other biological factors involved that we don't yet
understand. For this reason the APR studies are very beneficial.

To determine if a food will work for more than one form of crystal it
is necessary to do what is called Activity Product Ratio studies.
APR's take a look at *all* the biological processes that contribute to
the formation of crystals. In a simplified explanation it works this
way. A group of cats are fed the test food over a period of time. The
urine is taken and placed in an incubator with a 1 gm crystal of the
type (struvite, CaOx, bru****e, urate, cystine etc) being tested
suspended in the urine. So if you are testing for stuvite you suspend
a 1 gm crystal of struvite in the urine. Incubate and then measure the
crystal size. If the crystal has lost weight you have created a urine
with all the biological factors considered that will not support the
growth of a struvite. Prescription Diet Feline c/d-oxl canned can
indeed be fed to both CaOx formers and struvite formers.

There´s absolutely nothing complicated in that. What you are doing is
testing the degree of saturation of the urine to a specific crystal.
If the urine is supersaturated, the crystal will grow. If it is
undersaturated, the crystal will become smaller. Some salts have a too
low solubility so you actually need ions in urine that will inhibit
their formation, such as magnesium inhibiting calcium oxalates. You
add water to the urine and that alone will decrease the concentration
of any given ion, therefore, when you add water, you are going from
supersaturated to saturated to undersaturated. Most canned foods will
be successful in preventing any kind of urolith. Let me add that
temperature influences saturation point. The solubility of some salts
increase with higher temperatures while others decrease. So, if you
want to do the APRs correctly, you must keep the urine sample at the
same temperature it is inside the body and correct for evaporation.

APR studies are substantially different than Relative Super
Saturationwhich does not measure all possible biological outcomes. As
a general rule the things you need to do to reduce one type, are in
opposition to what you need to do to keep another stone out. Stuvites
- lower urine pH to 6.2-6.4, reduce magnesium, phosphorus, In contrast
for CaOx stones we need to increase magnesium increase urine pH
slightly to a still acidic 6.6-6.8 and reduce calcium intake. In most
case you cannot do these opposing things at the same time. Thus what
we understand about srystal formation is not yet complete. There are
definitely other biological factors involved that we don't yet
understand. For this reason the APR studies are very beneficial.

Companies pretend they don´t understand because they make no money
telling people to make sure their cats get plenty of water (liquids in
general). Wanna solve the problem? Water is the solution. But don´t
expect a company to say this openly. They want to make money with
their miracle diets.

To determine if a food will work for more than one form of crystal it
is necessary to do what is called Activity Product Ratio studies.
APR's take a look at *all* the biological processes that contribute to
the formation of crystals. In a simplified explanation it works this
way. A group of cats are fed the test food over a period of time. The
urine is taken and placed in an incubator with a 1 gm crystal of the
type (struvite, CaOx, bru****e, urate, cystine etc) being tested
suspended in the urine. So if you are testing for stuvite you suspend
a 1 gm crystal of struvite in the urine. Incubate and then measure the
crystal size. If the crystal has lost weight you have created a urine
with all the biological factors considered that will not support the
growth of a struvite. Prescription Diet Feline c/d-oxl canned can
indeed be fed to both CaOx formers and struvite formers.

There´s absolutely nothing complicated in that. What you are doing is
testing the degree of saturation of the urine to a specific crystal.
If the urine is supersaturated, the crystal will grow. If it is
undersaturated, the crystal will become smaller. Some salts have a too
low solubility so you actually need ions in urine that will inhibit
their formation, such as magnesium inhibiting calcium oxalates. You
add water to the urine and that alone will decrease the concentration
of any given ion, therefore, when you add water, you are going from
supersaturated to saturated to undersaturated. Most canned foods will
be successful in preventing any kind of urolith. Let me add that
temperature influences saturation point. The solubility of some salts
increase with higher temperatures while others decrease. So, if you
want to do the APRs correctly, you must keep the urine sample at the
same temperature it is inside the body and correct for evaporation.

APR studies are substantially different than Relative Super
Saturationwhich does not measure all possible biological outcomes. As
a general rule the things you need to do to reduce one type, are in
opposition to what you need to do to keep another stone out. Stuvites
- lower urine pH to 6.2-6.4, reduce magnesium, phosphorus, In contrast
for CaOx stones we need to increase magnesium increase urine pH
slightly to a still acidic 6.6-6.8 and reduce calcium intake. In most
case you cannot do these opposing things at the same time. Thus what
we understand about srystal formation is not yet complete. There are
definitely other biological factors involved that we don't yet
understand. For this reason the APR studies are very beneficial.

Companies pretend they don´t understand because they make no money
telling people to make sure their cats get plenty of water (liquids in
general). Wanna solve the problem? Water is the solution. But don´t
expect a company to say this openly. They want to make money with
their miracle diets.

In article ,
(Steve Crane) wrote:

Actually it's a bit more complicated than just the urine pH. Lots more
complicated.

I do believe that was my point. There are so many predisposing factors
that it's ridiculous to try to narrow it down to just "acidify for
struvite and alkalinize for oxalate". Yet by altering just one of those
predisposing factors--urine specific gravity--I get a happy, healthy cat
with no clinical signs of his disease.

I'm sure your company's complicated in vitro studies are top-of-the-line
and I've never doubted the ability of a Hill's therapeutic diet to
address the narrow issue for which it was created. What I doubt is the
diet's ability to promote overall wellness and glowing health. My
one-cat in vivo study is progressing just fine in that area as well, and
I'm satisfied with the results.

-Alison in OH