Canned Food And Mouth Cancer?

wombat

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Environmental and lifestyle risk factors for oral squamous cell carcinoma in domestic cats. - PubMed - NCBI
Mouth Cancer in Cats - Symptoms, Causes, Diagnosis, Treatment, Recovery, Management, Cost

It's been said that the risk for mouth cancer is tripled if your cats consume a high volume of canned food. I've always had my boy on canned food, especially after he developed CKD. He doesn't drink on his own so I've had to give him canned food in a soup-like consistency. Should I be switching to dry food, or making my own food instead?
 

Furballsmom

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I would do this; try and avoid carrageenan in the food. There are other bad ingredients but this one is carcinogenic if I recall correctly.
You could add some kibble but in my opinion it's not necessary to avoid wet altogether.

For dry take a look at Dr elseys clean protein.
For wet take a look at this; Pet Food Guide
For home cooked recipes you could start here; catinfo.org
 

Willowy

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Why guess is that correlation is not causation. I would guess that those cats had mouth problems already and that's why they were fed canned food. Untreated long-term mouth inflammation can lead to mouth cancer. And it's very likely that a cat with long-term untreated mouth inflammation probably wouldn't want to eat dry food.
 

jinxybean

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From the journal link:

Dietary intake of fruits and vegetables has been associated with significant reductions in risk of oral SCC in several studies, attributed largely to the high content of antioxidants such as beta-carotene and vitamin C in these foods. In contrast, high intake of saturated fats and meat products has been positively associated with oral cancer. We observed a significant increase in risk in cats that frequently ate canned cat food compared to those eating dry food, which potentially could be related to differences in the nutrient content of these foods. The findings suggest that further research into the effects of the specific nutrients of dry and canned foods might be warranted.
An alternative explanation of the difference in risk among food types might be that cats eating dry food could have less tartar buildup and consequently better oral hygiene than those that eat canned food. Poor oral hygiene, including infrequent teeth brushing and a high number of lost teeth, has been associated with a 2-fold increase in risk in several studies of humans. We observed a modest, but non-significant reduction in oral SCC risk in cats that had their teeth brushed, but no significant increase in risk in cats with a history of dental problems.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1939-1676.2003.tb02478.x
 

Furballsmom

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Here's my problem with that; manufacturers of canned food use different processing methods, never mind a lot of different ingredients.
There's w-a-y too much generality in this report. I won't be changing what I buy except maybe to keep more of an eye out for carcinogenic additives, I've only been crazy paranoid about menadione previously.
 

foxden

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This paper is from 2003. There have been a lot of advances in vet technology since this was published.
There will always be some vets who feel dry food is better for a cat's teeth. On the other hand, feeding canned food has saved the lives of some cats who had blocked from crystals and UTI.
I am not an expert in the field.
The topic of wet vs dry food is still under debate in feline veterinary science.
 
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