Appropriate diet to maintain feline kidney health

zoneout

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Dear Dr. Kris,

Assuming we have a cat with strong genes who luckily inherited 2 strong and healthy kidneys, what do you think the impact would be -over time- of a daily diet consisting of the following ingredients that were taken from the AAFCO approved label of one of the most popular brands available today?

Ingredients: Brewers rice, soybean meal, corn gluten meal, meat and bone meal, ground yellow corn, beef tallow preserved with mixed-tocopherols (source of Vitamin E), fish meal, turkey by-product meal, phosphoric acid, salt, brewers dried yeast, dried liver digest, added color (Red 40, Blue 2, Yellow 5, Yellow 6 and other color), potassium chloride, choline chloride, tetra sodium pyrophosphate, taurine, DL-Methionine, zinc sulfate, ferrous sulfate, manganese sulfate, calcium carbonate, vitamin supplements (E, A, B-12, D-3), niacin, L-Alanine, calcium pantothenate, copper sulfate, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride, folic acid, citric acid, calcium iodate, biotin, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of Vitamin K activity), sodium selenite.  

Let`s say hypothetically the cat was started on this daily diet at the age of 1 year.   Assuming he doesn`t succomb to any other health related issues for the duration - at what age would you expect to see adverse impacts - if any - to the kidneys start to appear?   Let`s assume that we follow the feeding directions on the label and provide the designated proper amount of food per the cat`s weight and also make sure he has a clean full dish of drinking water every day as recommended.

Thank you for your time and courtesy.
 
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dr kris

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Neat question Zoneout!

Hmmmmmm....

We all know cat's like Uncle George. You know, he smoked a pack a day, was weekend buddies with Mr. Jack Daniels, never went to the gym, but somehow outlived everyone.

But even with good genes, we know that cats are strict carnivores, and they have been for about 10,000 years or so. You can see this with their teeth design, stomach size, intestinal design, and even the magnitude of certain bacteria found in their gut.

Their strong prey drive was to catch mice, birds, amphibians etc. I've yet to see them hunt rice.

I want the first ingredient on that food to be a quality protein. But it's rice instead.

I've got nothing personally against rice. Growing up, my grandparents fed their dogs everything that we ate - so they ate a balanced omnivorous diet, including rice.

But for good reason, there is speculation that high carb diets lead to obesity. And obesity leads to the dark side of the pancreas (diabetes of course).

So. You could have the Uncle George of cats, eating his rice and outliving everyone. I've seen it happen.

But for the rest of us, we need all the help we can get. I've seen CKD as early as 2 years of age. No one can prove it was the diet, but proper nutrition affects everything in the body, doesn't it?

k
 
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zoneout

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@Dr Kris

OK, sorry - what I left out was this:

Guaranteed Analysis: Crude Protein (Min) 32.0%, Crude Fat (Min) 9.0%, Crude Fiber (Max) 4.0%, Moisture (Max) 12.0%, Calcium (Min) 1.0%, Phosphorus (Min) 0.9%

The 12% moisture analysis is the clue that this is dry food.    Now - don`t the kidneys require plenty of moisture to do their thing and to stay healthy?   If this is true - then how can the majority of cat owners be confident that their cat is drinking enough water from other sources to keep their kidneys happy and healthy over the long haul?    And as an adjunct, if this is indeed causing a chronic lack of optimum hydration - what is the impact to kidneys that are chronically deprived of fluid sufficiency?
 
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dr kris

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@Dr Kris

OK, sorry - what I left out was this:

Guaranteed Analysis: Crude Protein (Min) 32.0%, Crude Fat (Min) 9.0%, Crude Fiber (Max) 4.0%, Moisture (Max) 12.0%, Calcium (Min) 1.0%, Phosphorus (Min) 0.9%

The 12% moisture analysis is the clue that this is dry food.    Now - don`t the kidneys require plenty of moisture to do their thing and to stay healthy?   If this is true - then how can the majority of cat owners be confident that their cat is drinking enough water from other sources to keep their kidneys happy and healthy over the long haul?    And as an adjunct, if this is indeed causing a chronic lack of optimum hydration - what is the impact to kidneys that are chronically deprived of fluid sufficiency?
In general, we are still not that great at predicting CKD when the kidneys just start to become effected.

And hydrated cats send lot's of blood and oxygen to those kidneys, which is a good thing.

So there is this big grey area in the life of a cats kidney.

Stay tuned! As time goes on I will be writing more about the research, clinical experience and hunches towards keeping those kidneys optimized!

k
 
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