zuloodisney.blogg.se - Taurine dogs

And raw and home-cooked diets increase your dog’s risk for many other health problems. However, we have diagnosed DCM in dogs eating these diets too. Out of concern, some owners are switching from BEG diets to a raw or home-cooked diet. Raw diets and homemade diets are not safe alternatives.And given the lack of quality control for dietary supplements, you can introduce new risks to your dog if you give a supplement without evidence that she needs it. Giving taurine is unlikely to prevent DCM unless your dog has taurine deficiency. This suggests that there’s something else playing a role in most cases – either a deficiency of a different nutrient or even a toxicity that may be associated with BEG diets.

Yet some of these dogs with DCM and normal taurine levels improve when their diets are changed. In our hospital, we currently measure taurine in all dogs with DCM, but more than 90% of our patients with DCM in which taurine has been measured have normal levels (and the majority are eating BEG diets). Some owners continue to feed a BEG diet but supplement taurine thinking that this will reduce their risk for heart disease.

Most dogs being diagnosed with DCM do not have low taurine levels.

In addition, not all pet food manufacturers have the same level of nutritional expertise and quality control, and this variability could introduce potential issues with some products. The apparent link between BEG diets and DCM may be due to ingredients used to replace grains in grain-free diets, such as lentils or chickpeas, but also may be due to other common ingredients commonly found in BEG diets, such as exotic meats, vegetables, and fruits. I am calling the suspected diets, “BEG” diets – boutique companies, exotic ingredients, or grain-free diets. This does not appear to be just an issue with grain-free diets. To be sure this information reaches as wide an audience as possible and to clear up confusion, I thought I’d provide some updates to address the most common misconceptions I’m hearing:

This article provides a summary of our current understanding of diet-associated dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), how to recognize it, and a recommended protocol for veterinarians to follow when they see dogs with DCM. But I’ve also found a tremendous amount of confusion and misinformation in the past 5 months including people who doubt that this is a real issue, some who still haven’t heard about it, and people who mistakenly think it’s just grain-free diets or that it’s only related to taurine.Īs a result of the continued confusion, some of my cardiologist colleagues and I wrote an article which was published in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. So, I’m pleased that people are interested in this important issue and trying to learn about it. You may have read my June 4 post, “ A broken heart: Risk of heart disease in boutique or grain-free diets and exotic ingredients.” This post had more than 180,000 page views in the first week and continues to get more than 2000 page views a day.