The fda is investigating a potential dietary link between canine dilated cardiomyopathy dcm and dogs eating certain grain free dog foods.
Grain free dog food not linked to dcm.
To better characterize diets reported in dcm cases product labels were examined to determine whether the product was grain free did not contain corn soy wheat rice barley or other grains.
And perhaps most important what it s not about.
The connection between diet.
Since then a lot has been written about this issue.
A 2018 study found that 24 golden retrievers with dcm that had been fed grain free dog food were deficient in taurine.
Grain free diets have risen in popularity in the last decade because several decades ago many in the pet industry saw what was happening to our pets in regard to obesity and other health issues and wanted to do something about it.
Your questions about grain free dog food riskswith aug 28 2020 dcm is also reported to occur in dogs eating diets that are not grain free 1 millions of healthy dogs around the world eat grain free diets their jun 22 2020 fda s investigation into a possible link between grain free pet food and dcm and its handling of the.
This led many manufacturers on a path to developed biologically appropriate diets for pets that had a high inclusion of meat not grains and high fat with.
This is according to a literature review of 150 studies on the causes of dcm conducted by a group of veterinarians veterinary cardiologists and animal nutritionists from bsm partners published in the journal of animal science jas.
In july 2018 fda alerted veterinarians and pet owners about a possible link between canine dilated cardiomyopathy dcm and certain dog food diets.
My aim with this article is to at least try to clear some of the fog around this and what s it all about.
The study was recently published in the journal plos one.
University of california davis veterinarians led a team that has found a link between some popular grain free legume rich dog diets and a type of nutritional deficiency and canine heart disease known as taurine deficient dilated cardiomyopathy.
Dilated cardiomyopathy dcm in dogs is largely an inherited disease and not the result of a grain free or legume rich diet.
This is because an alternate form of starch is needed for kibbles to be extruded.
Why is this significant.
Grain free diets don t contain the cereal grains we like to avoid like corn rice and barley but they contain large amounts of peas potatoes lentils and legumes.
The foods of concern are those containing legumes.
In parallel with the fda investigation our own third party internal studies found no link between our high quality pet food products and any of the other physical characteristics that correlate to dcm.
Dcm was discovered 18 years ago in 2001 before 21st century grain free diets dcm is not a new problem with dogs.