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Veterinarian Cancer Expert tells Pet Food to Consider the Health Implications
- 7-27-2010
- Categorized in: Pet Food Ingredients
Wow. A panel meeting at the 2010 IFT (Institute of Food Technology) Annual Meeting & Food Expo "encouraged pet food manufacturers to consider the health implications of their products in order to improve animals' health" reports NaturalNews.com That's not likely, but...Wow.
"Dr. Dressler, known as the "dog cancer vet" because of his work in unraveling the intricacies of canine cancer, said the key is severely limiting snack foods for humans and dogs that contain ingredients rich in omega-6 fatty acids." Besides red meat common to some pet foods, other highly popular pet food ingredients such as soybean products, canola oil, and corn products produce Omega 6 fatty acids. "Omega-6 fatty acids tend to increase inflammation, blood clotting and cell proliferation, while omega-3 fatty acids decrease those functions of the immune system. The problem is that the typical American diet - for people as well as their pets - tends to be overloaded with omega-6s and deficient in omega-3s."
http://www.naturalnews.com/029291_cancer_diet.html
From the IFT.org recap of the Healthier Pets Make for Healthier People presentation, "Only 5–10% of cancers are attributable to genes. Consequently, the main factors affecting the rate of cancer in both humans and their pets are diet and lifestyle. Dressler says that three dietary factors leading to an increased risk of cancer are excessive consumption of omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), inefficient consumption of omega-3 PUFAs, and excessive calories in food. Modern Western diets for humans have a 16 to 1 ratio of omega-6 PUFAs to omega-3 PUFAs; the same is true for pet food. This highly disproportionate ratio leads to inflammation, which provides an ideal environment for cancer. Tissue proliferation, blood supply, and cell movement also provide ideal conditions for cancer growth." http://live.ift.org/2010/07/19/healthier-pets-make-for-healthier-people/
The highest levels of Omega-3 fatty acid pet food ingredients are flaxseed or flaxseed oil, salmon, and fish oil.
Read your labels. Less soybean products, corn products, and canola oil and more flaxseed, salmon, and fish oil.
Wishing you and your pet(s) the best, Susan Thixton
Truth about Pet Food
Petsumer Report
www.TruthaboutPetFood.com
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Pets cannot digest flaxseed or flaxseed oil and it because useless to them. It is a plant protein and pets have limited ability to digest plant protein. Stick to animal sources. Sardines have the highest amount of Omega-3 then even salmon. Sardines are a better source.
Logan I wish this was more widely known. Flaxseed is a plant based product and oil. Cats especially can't process these, in fact they are inflammatory oils for cats. Oils should be prey sized animal/fish oils with Vit E, not rosemary as a preservative. Cellulose is a gut irritant for cats, but it's cheap so it's used a lot in cat foods, even high priced ones. There is research to prove this, so I must believe the companys making the food are quite aware of it. I am so tired of trying to find a decent cat food. The grain free hype is nice, but then they add fruits, veggies, herbs and plant oils. Our cats just can't win. Cats are more sensative than dogs, so can't tolerate all the inappropriate things in their food.
Cats are able to digest some herbs and vegetables. Some not a great deal. Cats in the wild will seek out different herbs that they some how know will healcertain illness they might have. It also depends on the cat when it comes to vegetables. My middle child loves his vegetables and certain fruit. I found him in my garbage eating the rind of cantolope. He is very funny. As a pet nurtitionist I do not neccesarly find veggies bad given that there protein intake is at least 70% to 80%. It is a balancing act like with humans.
Lori,
Dogs are better able to digest flaxseed oil but I still would not recommend it. I also do not like salmon oil. Personally, I love small fish oil. Macrel, Sardines. Large fish oil have to much mercury in them where small fish lifespan limits the amount of mercury that they intake. On a personal note, I gave my dog flaxseed oil several years ago but then decided to switch to a fish oil and since the switch his coat improved, his skin allergies went down. He overall improved on the fish oil as oppose to the flaxseed oil.
would you address fish preservatives in a sentance or two? I forgot the name of the dangerous one..ethy...something???
Ethoxyquin. Call the manufacturer and ask if the fish meal or fish oil is preserved with ethoxyquin.
My understanding is that dogs cannot digest whole flaxseeds - because of the seed shell. They can process ground flax and flaxseed oil.
Re: flax seed- my understanding is the same as Nicoll's - that dogs can digest ground flax seed and flax seed oil. I intend to do more research on this now, and would sincerely appreciate references about this either way. I was on a home-cooking-for-dogs list for awhile and the claim there was that dogs could digest flax seed oil and ground flax, but were more likely to have an allergic or other bad digestive reaction to it than to salmon or other fish oil, though some dogs do react to fish as well (they are so prone to allergies!).
Re: the IFT.org statement: "Only 5–10% of cancers are attributable to genes. Consequently, the main factors affecting the rate of cancer in both humans and their pets are diet and lifestyle...." Let us not forget environmental toxins, pollution, etc., as part of the 90 - 95% not covered by genes. Which is not to say that diet is unimportant, obviously it is very important, but so is pollution and contamination of indoor materials (toys, etc) and similar things that I don't think really fall under "lifestyle" (which I think of as how much exercise one gets and the like). The oil spill is a grim reminder of this. We need to be vigilant on all these fronts.