Diet and Feline Diabetes

Feeding your cat non-dry cat food is the best thing you can do for your cat, diabetic or not. A cat is an “obligate carnivore.” That means the physiology and anatomy of the cat are suited to eating a high protein, meat diet. Dry food, even prescription diabetic food, just cannot meet this requirement for high protein.

A low-carbohydrate, high protein, wet diet has been associated with remission (disappearance of symptoms) of diabetes in cats. You can feed your cat a raw or cooked diet that you make yourself or there are many excellent high protein canned foods available. As a cost-conscious compromise, you can feed readily available low-cost canned foods, such as certain varieties of Fancy Feast.

Do your cat a favor and feed her protein.

Diet is only one part of getting started. You’ll also need supplies for home blood glucose testing, ketone monitoring, and handling low blood sugar. We’ve put the core supplies together in our Feline Diabetes Starter Kit to make getting started easier.

• • The famous Janet & Binky food charts. Charts comparing the nutritional content of various commercial foods. Invaluable.

• • Low carb, wheat-gluten free Fancy Feast varieties
    Fancy Feast is an economical, low-carb wet food for your cat – at least, certain varieties!

• • Feline Diabetes and Diet: The High Carbohydrate Culprit
    A veterinarian cautions against including too many carbohydrates in your cat’s diet.

• • Feline Diabetes and Obesity: The Preventable Epidemics
    An intiguing article by Elizabeth Hodgkins DVM, Esq. discussing the link between diet and two common feline health problems.
  • Does a low-carb diet increase the risk of ketones in a cat?
    This informal discussion by Dr. Elizabeth Hodgkins gives a great description of ketones and how cats process glucose.

• • The Carnivore Connection to Nutrition in Cats by Debra Zoran, DVM, Ph.D., DVACIM. A .pdf article from the December 2002 issue of the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.

• • Feeding: Know the Basics of Feline Nutrition. The web site of Lisa A. Pierson DVM, who is passionate about the critical role of diet in the health of cats.
• • CatNutrition.org provides practical information for the layperson.

• • Dietary Recommendations for Cats with DM
    Discussion of studies comparing low carbohydrate vs. high fiber diets and reduction of obesity in feline diabetics.

Last update: August 2010.