Cats and Carbs

I recently attended a veterinary conference in Kansas City and was REALLY excited to get to hear one of the clinical professors from Texas A&M talk about feline nutrition, obesity, and diabetes. This is cool stuff. Cats are bad about storing mesenteric fat. This is the belly fat. Fat that gets packed around the intestines, kidneys, and liver. This is where most human men (including ME) tend to pack the fat in. So this is a subject close to my heart (or at least close to my pancreas).

Mesenteric fat is uber bad. Fat in the belly pushes up on your chest and stomach and causes difficulty breathing and stomach reflux simply because of its bulk. It also makes it difficult for blood to circulate around the lower half of the body and helps drive up blood pressure. As if all that wasn't bad enough, we have now found that mesenteric fat cells are also capable of producing lots of their very own hormones as well. But wait - it gets worse. Most of the hormones that these fat cells make actually encourage more fat production, cause inflammatory changes in the body, and increase appetite! How horrible is that!

Feline nutritional requirements:

It is becoming more and more apparent that cats have a much higher requirement for protein than we once thought. It is also becoming more apparent that cats have a much LOWER tolerance of carbohydrates than we thought. This probably goes back to the fact that cats are true carnivores and their prey are only made up of a relatively small amount of carbohydrate with the remainder being made up of fats and proteins. Our domestication and inbreeding of cats has muddied the nutritional waters, but the basic genetic code is still pretty close. Wild felids (cats) don't normally eat much carbohydrate.

So is too much carbohydrate bad for a cat? THAT is the big question right now. There is some good research that would suggest that increased consumption of carbohydrates actually encourage deposition of abdominal fat and upset the pancreas in cats. Remember that abdominal fat is the worst kind of fat.

So should we eliminate or severely restrict carbohydrates for our cats? NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! Carbohydrates are essential to life. Severe restrictions in carbohydrate intake are known to be bad. The discussion here is all about balance. The best balance for a cat is different than the best balance for a dog. (And this assumes that we're talking about a 'normal' adult cat or dog. In cases of illness, very young, very old then everything changes.)

Here's MY OPINION based on what I've been presented: I think it is reasonable that we are feeding more carbohydrate than we should. It could start to explain quite a few things. I see waaaay to much obesity, diabetes, lower urinary tract disease, and renal disease in cats. I KNOW our current nutrition isn't perfect. It's damn good, but we've been missing something. I believe increased belly fat is absolutely associated with lots of bad disease. If increased carbohydrates are, in fact, the main cause of the increased belly fat, then we need to change up how we feed our kitties.

What am I recommending to my patients?
First things first - FEED THE CAT, NOT THE BAG. If your cat is an ideal weight with ideal body condition, then keep feeding whatever you're feeding.
However, in cases of obesity, pancreatitis or diabetes I am leaning towards lower carbohydrate, higher protein foods unless concurrent illness in the patient tells me not to. (Diabetic cat in kidney failure, for instance.)

Next post, I'll build on this discussion and talk about canned foods for cats and why that might actually be the best way to feed your kitty.

AMH