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Link between dry food and kidney disease?
A friend just told me that a veterinarian she knows said that the reason
domestic cats so often get kidney disease is because they're fed dry food, and their bodies didn't evolve to deal with so much non-meat in their diet. I can understand that dry food can bring on diabetes, because the cat is eating a lot more carbohydrate than their body needs or is built for metabolizing. But kidney disease? I always thought that too much *protein* was the cause (or one of the causes) of kidney failure. Or can cats ever have too much protein? Any of the medically savvy want to take a stab at this? Howard? Phil, if you're reading? Joyce |
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Link between dry food and kidney disease?
wrote in message
... A friend just told me that a veterinarian she knows said that the reason domestic cats so often get kidney disease is because they're fed dry food, and their bodies didn't evolve to deal with so much non-meat in their diet. I can understand that dry food can bring on diabetes, because the cat is eating a lot more carbohydrate than their body needs or is built for metabolizing. But kidney disease? I always thought that too much *protein* was the cause (or one of the causes) of kidney failure. Or can cats ever have too much protein? Any of the medically savvy want to take a stab at this? Howard? Phil, if you're reading? I would have thought it was due to the lack of water content in it. In its natural environment - deserts - a cat would live off eating other animals, which would contain approximatley 70% water because drinking water in deserts is rare. Dry food does't have the water content, so a cat's kidneys have to work harder to extract the toxins from the blood stream and therefore make a much more highly concentrated uring than they would in the wild. The harder the kidneys have to work, the mor elikely it is that they'll begin to fail early, so *flesh* was preferrable to dry food. Yowie (well, thats how my vet explained it to me. Of course, in its natural evironment, the cat also doesn't have bathroom faucets and trained slaves either) |
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Link between dry food and kidney disease?
wrote in message ... A friend just told me that a veterinarian she knows said that the reason domestic cats so often get kidney disease is because they're fed dry food, and their bodies didn't evolve to deal with so much non-meat in their diet. I can understand that dry food can bring on diabetes, because the cat is eating a lot more carbohydrate than their body needs or is built for metabolizing. But kidney disease? I always thought that too much *protein* was the cause (or one of the causes) of kidney failure. Or can cats ever have too much protein? Any of the medically savvy want to take a stab at this? Howard? Phil, if you're reading? Joyce Just my two cents. Our first dog nearly died of kidney failure at eight years old. And the vet blamed it on her getting into the cats food with its high protein level. This was for the most part dry cat food as that's mostly what we've always fed. She recovered, restricted to K/D for the rest of her 18 year life. None of our cats have had kidney or diabetes problems. But that's only seven cats over forty years. I have a question though. I get the impression that we've agreed that all moist cat food is very low in carbs and that all dry cat food is high in carbs. Isn't there a range of carb vs protein in both of them? I can understand that a cat might not drink enough water to handle an all dry food diet, though that has never been a problem with ours. But is there always that large a difference in the composition of the two? Our cats are healthy, slim, and have lovely coats. And for the most part live on Nutro dry cat food. Jo |
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Link between dry food and kidney disease?
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Link between dry food and kidney disease?
jmcquown wrote:
Persia's kidney enzymes checked out just fine. Does your friend have a citation for her information or is she just passing along something she heard from someone who heard from someone who heard...? She heard it from a veterinarian. As she put it, a "newly minted" veterinarian. Which could translate to "inexperienced", but can also translate to "up on the latest info." I'd never heard that before myself, so I was just curious if anyone here ever has. Joyce |
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Link between dry food and kidney disease?
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Link between dry food and kidney disease?
Christina Websell wrote: My vet told me to take Boyfriend off dry food (which he loved, maybe he was reared on it) to prevent kidney disease and urinary blockage and put him on wet food. Boyfie went on hunger strike, so I rang the vet and he told me to persist as it was in his own best interest. He did eventually eat it and he is okay with it now, he just gets a tablespoonful of dry as a treat a few times a week. KFC will eat absolutely anything, presumably because she was feral and ate anything she could get. She can't eat dry now because she doesn't have many teeth left. I took a funny photo of her last week climbing into the chicken bucket because I'd put some leftover dinner in there without offering it to her first! I'll try and upload it somewhere soon. It's still in my camera and I'm a bit pushed for time. When you see her climbing into a 2 gallon bucket you'll realise how really tiny she is. Tweed After Rusty's second urinary blockage, the vet said no more dry food, not even prescription dry food for urinary blockages. He has been eating only can food since then. He did have crystals a few times, but he was not blocked. Not that I can remember anyway. Memory of all those mad dashes to the vet are kind of mixed up now. I add water to the can food to make sure Rusty get plenty of water. I adjust the amount of water added depending on the output in the litter box. Winnie |
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