Nutritional Management in Cats
At Nestlé PURINA PetCare, our vision is to lead the world in improving the lives of cats and dogs. Groundbreaking discoveries in canine and feline nutrition help us to develop innovative new products and make important advances in pet health and well-being – many having redefined the pet industry’s nutritional standards.
The PURINA VETERINARY DIETS® range of clinical diets has been created for veterinary surgeons, like yourself, to enable you to strengthen the effectiveness of your overall treatment protocol with targeted, science-based and proven effective formulas.
Our diets are formulated using the latest discoveries from veterinary surgeons and scientists who are experts in the nutritional management of feline conditions such as obesity, diabetes mellitus, FLUTD, food allergies, intestinal disorders and renal disease.
Nutrition is an important therapeutic intervention in the management of critical care patients1. During illness hormonal and cytokine changes interfere with the normal adaptive responses to a reduced caloric intake. Thus, energy requirements are not down-regulated, and a metabolic shift also causes preferential use of body protein rather than fat to meet ongoing energy demands1.
Although carbohydrates are an important energy component in foods, cats have no absolute requirement for carbohydrates:
There are wide-ranging causes for vomiting and/or diarrhoea in cats that include both functional and structural changes to the GI tract. Some common causes of acute and chronic gastroenteritis include:
Probiotics are defined as live organisms that when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host. Successful probiotics should be1,2:
Food allergy (dietary hypersensitivity) is an important cause of dermatological and gastrointestinal disease in cats. The true prevalence of food allergy is unknown, but it has been suggested to be the second (after flea allergic dermatitis) or third most common cutaneous hypersensitivity disorder and responsible for between 1 and 15% of pruritic dermatoses.
Chronic renal failure (CRF) is one of the most common and important diseases of older cats. The risk of CRF developing in cats over ten years of age increases approximately 4-5 fold, and the risk in cats over 15 years of age increases approximately 20 fold.
Obesity and excess bodyweight has become a major problem in cats in many regions of the world, just as it is amongst human beings. Studies suggest that up to 20-40% of cats may be overweight, with up to 5-10% being classified as obese1.
The two most common causes of feline lower urinary tract disease (FLUTD) are idiopathic cystitis and urolithiasis, together accounting for up to 80-90% of cases1. Overall recurrence rates of up to 40-45% have been reported1.
