THE BEST DIABETES DIET FOR CATS
By Tess Thompson
Diet plays as important a role as drugs and insulin injections in treating diabetes in cats. Actually, diet control and management must be concomitant to medication. It is futile to expect medication as a standalone treatment to provide an effective cure for diabetes.
Diabetes is a condition where the pancreas is unable to produce enough insulin for regulating glycogen and oxidizing sugar. There is always some amount of glucose in the food that you feed your cat. If the intake is not regulated, there can be no limit to the amount of exogenous insulin that the cat may require to process the glucose.
Moreover, it is only cats with pronounced and persistent hyperglycemia that require insulin injections. Symptoms of diabetes in cats , with blood sugar levels only slightly above normal, can be treated with dietary management or oral pills only. Further, diabetic cats must be fed regularly to prevent a situation of overdose of insulin.
Obesity is one of the risk factors for diabetes in cats. Diabetic diet for cats should consider the weight factor before anything else. The weight loss of the cat should be gradual, preferably 3% of body weight per week. A diet with high fiber content and complex carbohydrates is most suited for loosing weight.
It also helps in controlling blood sugar levels immediately after meals. Underweight cats should be fed a high calorie diet till the time their body weight reaches the recommended level. The diabetic diet for maintaining weight can be started thereafter.
Diet for cats on insulin should be monitored based on the type of insulin that they are given. If the injection is being given once in a day, the cat should be fed half of the recommended diet at the time of the injection. The other half, when insulin reaches the peak of its activity. Cats receiving two injections in a day must be fed at each administration.
Cats are naturally carnivorous and their body is adapted to process proteins efficiently. The enzymes required for efficient processing of carbohydrates for energy are missing in cats. Whether a cat is diabetic or not, it requires very low amounts of carbohydrates - a mouse or a bird that cats eat contain only 3-5% carbohydrates. A low carbohydrate content in cat food helps not only in preventing diabetes but also aids during treatment.
At the same time it must be clarified that all carbohydrates are not the same. There are simple and complex carbohydrates. In as far as carbohydrates for diabetic cats are concerned the benchmark should be the Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load. These benchmarks reflect the speed with which a specific carbohydrate increases blood sugar levels and the extent of its overall impact on the diabetic state. The lower the index and load the better it is for a cat with diabetes.
The diet should always be appropriate to the species it is being fed to. The general rule for a diabetic diet for cats, despite assertions by advertisers that dry food or canned food is better is that all types of grain should be avoided.
Diet should contain only those carbohydrates that have a low glycemic index and load. A high fiber diet should be used only for the purpose of weight loss. If you stick to these guidelines right from the beginning, there is a great possibility that your cat may not have diabetes at all.
References:
http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/diabetes-feline.html
http://www.sugarpet.net/whatisit.html
http://www.sniksnak.com/cathealth/diabetes.html
http://www.vetinfo4cats.com/cdiabetes.html
http://petcare.suite101.com/article.cfm/feline_diabetes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetes_in_cats_and_dogs
http://www.catinfo.org/felinediabetes.htm
http://diabeticdietadvice.blogspot.com/
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