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A cross-sectional study of owner-reported health in Canadian and American cats fed meat- and plant-based diets
BACKGROUND: Cats, being obligate carnivores, have unique dietary requirements for nutrients most commonly found in dietary ingredients of animal origin. As such, feeding a diet devoid of animal-derived ingredients has been postulated as a possible cause of nutrient imbalances and adverse health outc...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7842014/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33509191 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12917-021-02754-8 |
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author | Dodd, Sarah A. S. Dewey, Cate Khosa, Deep Verbrugghe, Adronie |
author_facet | Dodd, Sarah A. S. Dewey, Cate Khosa, Deep Verbrugghe, Adronie |
author_sort | Dodd, Sarah A. S. |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Cats, being obligate carnivores, have unique dietary requirements for nutrients most commonly found in dietary ingredients of animal origin. As such, feeding a diet devoid of animal-derived ingredients has been postulated as a possible cause of nutrient imbalances and adverse health outcomes. A small proportion of cat owners feed strictly plant-based diets to the cats in their care, yet the health and wellness of cats fed these diets has not been well documented. RESULTS: A total of 1325 questionnaires were complete enough for inclusion. The only exclusion criterion was failure to answer all questions. Most cats, 65% (667/1026), represented in the survey were fed a meat-based diet and 18.2% (187/1026) were fed a plant-based diet, with the rest fed either a combination of plant-based with meat-based (69/1026, 6.7%) or indeterminable (103/1026, 10%). Cat age ranged from 4 months to 23 years, with a median of 7 years, and was not associated with diet type. No differences in reported lifespan were detected between diet types. Fewer cats fed plant-based diets reported to have gastrointestinal and hepatic disorders. Cats fed plant-based diets were reported to have more ideal body condition scores than cats fed a meat-based diet. More owners of cats fed plant-based diets reported their cat to be in very good health. CONCLUSIONS: Cat owner perception of the health and wellness of cats does not appear to be adversely affected by being fed a plant-based diet. Contrary to expectations, owners perceived no body system or disorder to be at particular risk when feeding a plant-based diet to cats. This study collected information from cat owners and is subject to bias, as well as methodological limitations. Further research is warranted to determine if these results are replicable in a prospective investigation. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12917-021-02754-8. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7842014 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-78420142021-01-28 A cross-sectional study of owner-reported health in Canadian and American cats fed meat- and plant-based diets Dodd, Sarah A. S. Dewey, Cate Khosa, Deep Verbrugghe, Adronie BMC Vet Res Research Article BACKGROUND: Cats, being obligate carnivores, have unique dietary requirements for nutrients most commonly found in dietary ingredients of animal origin. As such, feeding a diet devoid of animal-derived ingredients has been postulated as a possible cause of nutrient imbalances and adverse health outcomes. A small proportion of cat owners feed strictly plant-based diets to the cats in their care, yet the health and wellness of cats fed these diets has not been well documented. RESULTS: A total of 1325 questionnaires were complete enough for inclusion. The only exclusion criterion was failure to answer all questions. Most cats, 65% (667/1026), represented in the survey were fed a meat-based diet and 18.2% (187/1026) were fed a plant-based diet, with the rest fed either a combination of plant-based with meat-based (69/1026, 6.7%) or indeterminable (103/1026, 10%). Cat age ranged from 4 months to 23 years, with a median of 7 years, and was not associated with diet type. No differences in reported lifespan were detected between diet types. Fewer cats fed plant-based diets reported to have gastrointestinal and hepatic disorders. Cats fed plant-based diets were reported to have more ideal body condition scores than cats fed a meat-based diet. More owners of cats fed plant-based diets reported their cat to be in very good health. CONCLUSIONS: Cat owner perception of the health and wellness of cats does not appear to be adversely affected by being fed a plant-based diet. Contrary to expectations, owners perceived no body system or disorder to be at particular risk when feeding a plant-based diet to cats. This study collected information from cat owners and is subject to bias, as well as methodological limitations. Further research is warranted to determine if these results are replicable in a prospective investigation. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12917-021-02754-8. BioMed Central 2021-01-28 /pmc/articles/PMC7842014/ /pubmed/33509191 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12917-021-02754-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Dodd, Sarah A. S. Dewey, Cate Khosa, Deep Verbrugghe, Adronie A cross-sectional study of owner-reported health in Canadian and American cats fed meat- and plant-based diets |
title | A cross-sectional study of owner-reported health in Canadian and American cats fed meat- and plant-based diets |
title_full | A cross-sectional study of owner-reported health in Canadian and American cats fed meat- and plant-based diets |
title_fullStr | A cross-sectional study of owner-reported health in Canadian and American cats fed meat- and plant-based diets |
title_full_unstemmed | A cross-sectional study of owner-reported health in Canadian and American cats fed meat- and plant-based diets |
title_short | A cross-sectional study of owner-reported health in Canadian and American cats fed meat- and plant-based diets |
title_sort | cross-sectional study of owner-reported health in canadian and american cats fed meat- and plant-based diets |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7842014/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33509191 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12917-021-02754-8 |
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