You guys have to read this and give me your ensight!

Some person on here by the name of WestCoastSyrinx proclaims to say that dry food is not bad for cats and that carbs are not the main reason for diabetes. I even read a comment in one of his sections discussing that the information from Catinfo.org is trash and that the Veterinarian on there isn't educated on nutrition. Yet that Vet turns away from all dry food and prefers you to feed strictly wet or raw. So who do you believe and what do you believe anymore? Seems like you just find trash out there everywhere and its a no wonder people have a hard time finding reliable food that works that will help with a diabetic-non diabetic cat and that will keep them healthy.

http://www.pet-health-care-gazette.com/2013/05/24/does-dry-cat-food-really-cause-feline-diabetes/

 

All I have to do is look at my cat Dusty, he had diabetes while on dry food and once on wet food he went into remission and has been for over a year now. I don't need further proof than that.

 

Yeah I'd think so too. Not sure if the Young Again would be just as good?

 

I have not found anything think that says dry food alone causes diabetes. However, dry foods, because of their high carbs can tip a cat on the borderline of diabetics over the edge.

 

Young Again is fine, its carb content is on par or better than Fancy Feast or Friskies, the only problem is as in other dry foods it causes thirst and if they don't get enough water they can have issues with their urinary tract. Just make sure he gets plenty of water and you should be ok if you decide to stick to Young Again. You can also do a combination of Young Again and wet, whatever works for you and your kitty.

 

I think the main problem with dry food is that most people just keep their kitty's bowl full at all times without regard to how many calories they're getting. A strict feeding schedule along with mandatory exercise and good quality dry food would probably be ok; I really don't know. I have two cats, they both ate the same dry food and only one developed diabetes. All cat's are different, I just won't take that chance and push Dusty back into full blown diabetes by trying dry food again.

 

Yeah I had Young Again before but my cats didn't eat it. What do you guys think on Wellness Core or Blue Buffalo Wilderness? I read with Wellness Core was fine for cats with diabetes?

 

Yeah the BCP PZI insulin isn't dropping my overweight cats insulin either. I should have gone with Lantus but I went with this one since it was a cat insulin and not a human.

 

I trust my cat. She looks and acts way healthier, she's a diet-controlled diabetic. And she looks years younger than she did pre-diagnosis. She has no trouble maintaining her ideal weight. Her urinary tract is great, too. Every improvement that Dr Pierson said could be achieved with a species-appropriate wet diet are beyond visible in Saoirse.

I would urge you to caution over how much credence you give to the BTL comments made by the most ubiquitous contributor to that debate. The vibe I get from that person's contributions smack to me of what one might expect from a person with a connection to the dry/prescription food business.

 

Anyone that's fed regular dry and home tested has seen for themselves what it does to a cats BG! I also do not believe it's coincidence that the rate of diabetes in cats has increased along with the amount of cereals and crap fillers that the cat food companies have been adding to their food. Besides which it's just common sense that the best food for good health for any species is what's natural for them.

This guy is off in fairy land, he probably thinks that Elvis still lives and the moon landing was faked too!

 

Exactly. I agree with Larry 110%.

Providing a link to the above would be helpful for the purpose of discussion.

FWIW, I don't understand the issues with the article that was linked in the first post of this thread. If dry food *caused* diabetes, every cat and dog I've/most of us have ever had would have developed diabetes. Instead I've had only one cat with diabetes.

From the linked article:
"We know that feeding a high-protein low-carbohydrate diet can be effective for controlling the glycemic response in diabetic cats and many diabetic cats fed this type of diet will actually go into diabetic remission. Many people make the claim that since feeding these diets to a diabetic cat is beneficial, then feeding a healthy cat a high-protein low-carbohydrate diet should prevent diabetes. However, the situation is actually much more complex than that." (Emphasis mine.)

The author acknowledges that feeding a high protein low carb diet can be effective for controlling blood glucose in felines plus goes on to mention exactly what we believe/have seen on the FDMB... the fact that many cats fed this diet can and do go into remission. The author then goes on to present other factors which could play into developing feline diabetes. She cites specific studies to back up her up. Do I agree with every study ever done? No, all too often studies are flawed for me to take every one at face value.

The last section simply relays the author's belief in the same approach we promote here on the FDMB: ECID. What works for one cat may or may not work for every cat.

My conclusion: The title of the linked article is "Does Dry Cat Food Really Cause Feline Diabetes?". The author doesn't think so and neither do I...




Just my thoughts...

 

That whole article, and the comments in question look to me like a complete misunderstanding of the situation. I've seen this a few times already - an assumption that because humans need a certain percentage of carbs, so do cats. And that's wrong - half the problem is that cats are treated as small humans when it comes to diet, and that doesn't suit the way they've evolved at all. And when I look at the difference switching to low carb wet food has made to Rosa, there's no way I'd ever go back to feeding her dry food. There is no doubt whatsoever, as an evidence-based study (though I accept I've only studied one cat in quite that much detail) that the low carb wet food has made a huge difference to how her system copes with the diabetes and that even small quantities of high carb food cause her BG to rise very quickly.

While it might be true that, using enough insulin, it's possible to control diabetes in a cat that eats exclusively high-carb dry food, that isn't exactly the best outcome for the cat no matter how you look at it.

The other question I haven't seen an answer to anywhere yet, but that really interests me is this (more related to the original article's discussion of why a low carb diet isn't required for non-diabetic cats than any of the comments):-
If it's possible for a low carb wet food to help cats get into diabetic remission, is it also possible that the percentage of diabetic cats is actually higher than we think, but that the ones that are fed low carb wet food anyway never develop high BG or any sort of symptoms because the failure of their beta cells is less of an issue when they aren't having to process carbs in their diet?

 

The comment is made in a BTL comment on the same web page as the article, Jill.

 

Thank you, Critter Mom!

 

Comments/discussion which follow an article often take twists and turns away from the original subject matter... as evidenced by the author virtually "dropping out" of the original conversation.

Some points made in the comments following that article are knowledgeable, informative, and spot on. Other comments... not-so-much. Many/most/every comment in that reply section can be picked apart by someone.

I agree with rbrumbaugh82. All of us have to do our own research. We also have to keep in mind the field of feline diabetes is ever changing. Something said today may not be applicable tomorrow simply because we're learning as we go... when we know better, we do better.

 

Westcoastsyrinx is a know-it-all that nobody is ever going to sway. I read that two years ago. Lots of FDMB members have posted in that comment section, but none got through.

Does dry food cause diabetes? Nope. I've had, I dunno, 30 cats? Never had one that didn't eat junk food dry. I didn't feed quality dry food with good ingredients. I gave everyone of them the cheapest dry food I could buy. Yet only Bob became a diabetic. His sister, Liilian, ate the same food he ate her whole life. No "sugars" for Lilly. Just fat Bob. Lilly wasn't even fat, maybe 9 pounds when Bob weighed 22. And she ate as much as he did. I guess he was just "predisposed to diabetes".
Dry food is bad for plenty of other reasons.

I do understand the opposition to "fat content", and yeah, usually a low carb food will have increased fat rather than increased protein. In the end, it all has to add up to 100% and fat is cheaper than protein.

No matter which cat food brand, cheap or the most expensive, the bottom line is, well, the bottom line. None of the conglomerates that put food in cans or bags cares a bit about whether or not the food is good for your cat. They are trying to make the most money possible. Each can or bag is filled as cheaply as they can get away with and still meet whatever " standards" they have to meet. And each product is advertised not to appeal to the animals, but to the humans who watch the commercials and read the ads.

Polly eats Fancy Feast. Two cans a day. She likes it. And not all "low carb" either. She likes gravy. I even buy little sample bags of dry food that I dole out about a quarter cup per week. She only eats a few kibbles on days when I can't get home to feed her when she expects to be fed. Vet says she looks fantastic. I agree.

 

If one steps back through the stages that may have occurred before FD Dx, how many cats develop obesity problems or IBD/pancreatitis/triaditis issues as a consequence of being fed dry diets and where FD subsequently occurs as a sequela? The path from dry food to eventual appearance of FD may not be a straight line.

 

As far as food goes, I agree with Larry, Jill, Carl and the others: dry food in itself shouldn't be a cause of diabetes (just like eating carbs doesn't cause it in people, unless you're already genetically wired to be diabetic), but the extra carbohydrates that most dry foods contain will require more insulin to be used for energy, and if it doesn't get used, you wind up with higher blood sugar levels. So you have to give more insulin to deal with it. Or produce more insulin if your pancreas is working, and in a diabetic cat with a pancreas that isn't quite fully functional, that could easily be the stress that causes the disease to manifest.

On another note from your post...

I'm not a doctor or a vet or a geneticist, so take this as you will, but from my experience at the human end of diabetes, I wouldn't put too much emphasis on "species-specific" insulin working any better for regulation. It's certainly worth trying to see if it makes a difference, but I wouldn't expect it to make that much difference: Human diabetics used solely beef and pork or pure pork insulin for decades before they came out with human insulin and the synthetic human insulins. Other than being more prone to getting "bumps and dips" at over-used injection sites (which seems to become a non-issue with the human insulins - admittedly because it is a species specific insulin for us), there was no problem for most diabetic humans staying at least reasonably regulated on these non-human insulins. As far as I could tell, what improved control over the years was developing very fast acting insulins (to use as a bolus for meals) and very long acting insulins like Lantus, so that we could keep a more continuous supply in the body. I was on a human-sourced insulin for many years (after several years of beef and pork insulins with the same duration of activity) before I was switched to super-fast and super-long duration insulins, and that's when my control improved - not with the switch to species-specific insulins. At that time, I remember that there were more than a few diabetic people who complained that they had done better on the beef and pork!

So give the PZI a chance (I have no idea how long to recommend waiting for a result - someone else with more experience with that insulin might be able to give you a more realistic window of when you ought to start seeing an improvement if it's going to happen), but if it doesn't work, you might want to consider trying another insulin with a different duration. It seems that different insulins work better for different cats, so you just have to find the best one for Pooper. And that might take some experimenting, unfortunately.

 

I'll only add an answer to your question.....

I say neither! try to remember that grain free doesn't mean carb free....


stick with the one that has at least 3 here ( maybe more) that have gone into remission.....that was on the young again....
and then the newest one on the block is Wysong Epigen 90. ( haven't heard of any successful remissions yet but this is a new food)

Here is Ninja's example..... https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Aqf3qFsppPQidDNIOVVoUC13QzVQa2lxOUw4cC1nNWc&output=html
dose climbed up and up on evo dry..... and then I heard someone else here talk about young again.... and told her about it...
she bought some and started it and you can see the immediate change for Ninja.
but note this: it's hard to do protocol with dry food..... simply because it is metabolized differently.



I can't help with PZI....
I didn't know what lantus was when the vet gave it to me but it's track record ( and levemir) has the highest success.

I think meanwhile you need to be patient... give what you have a chance...
obviously you haven't found the right dose yet.....
and remember this rule .....
once a diabetic, always a diabetic..... remission only means diet controlled....

 

Just a data point, I adopted Dulce in July of last year as an untreated diabetic. Previous diet unknown since he was turned into a shelter and I picked him up the next day. He eats about 10-20% canned and the rest Evo dry Cat and Kitten food. He went OTJ after being on Lantus for about a month.

 

Yeah I'm going to give this insulin a shot as I am trying to find his dosage. However, if he has gum or mouth issues then probably why I can't get his number down. My next choice would be Lantus if I can't get him regulated with this. Just can't afford large Vet bill if he has to have dental work done.