October 21, 2002

Are we somehow creating a race of cats that cannot digest animal products? Is it a problem that is passing through the generations or is it due to excessive antibiotic use in kittens (antibiotics do cause intestinal disturbances) or is it over vaccination? Is it all of the above?

I have been hypothesizing for some time now about commercial food causing the intestinal tract of cats to lengthen and loose tone and elasticity. This would result in both diarrhea and constipation that has become quite chronic in cats of all ages. I can understand an older cat taken off a commercial food diet and put on a raw diet having constipation issues. The commercial diet would provide a great deal of bulk that results in voluminous, soft stool. Bulky, soft stool passing through the cat's intestinal tract vs. more fibrous matter (as in bone, hide, etc. found in a cat's natural diet) would, in my opinion, stretch the intestinal tract and cause it to loose elasticity. A properly balanced raw diet would provide little bulk and would contain mostly digestible ingredients resulting in little stool production. I find it difficult to accept a young cat on a raw diet having either chronic constipation or diarrhea symptoms.

The answer was right under my nose in Pottenger's Cats: A Study In Nutrition, by Francis M. Pottenger, Jr., M.D. Pottenger speaks of the cooked meat diet causing allergies, among other things, in cats. First deficient generation allergic cats produce second generation kittens with greater incidence of allergies, and by the third generation, the incidence is almost 100 percent. (Pottenger 33)

Pottenger stated in his study, the intestinal tracts of the allergic cats prove particularly remarkable at autopsy. Measurements of the length of the gastrointestinal tracts of several hundred normal and deficient adult cats are compared. The measurement starts at the epiglottis and includes the esophagus, the stomach, duodenum, jejunum and the colon to the rectum. In the average normal cat, the intestinal tract is approximately 48 inches long; in some of the allergic cats, the intestinal tracts measure as long as 72 to 80 inches. Those elongated tracts lack tissue tone and elasticity. (Pottenger 34)

"Deficient" is the term used to describe cats fed the cooked meat diet.

The digestive tract begins with the mouth, even in a cat that doesn't chew its food. The cooked meat diet caused dental issues in the cats that progressively got worst from generation to generation. Adult cats placed on a cooked meat or pasteurized milk diet begin to show unhealthy conditions in their mouths within three to six months. These cats first present gingivitis followed by incrustation of salivary calculi which continues to increase whether the cat is maintained on a deficient diet or returned to an optimum diet. (Pottenger 22)

This is why tarter deposits often do not improve when a cat previously on a commercial food diet is put on a raw diet. A cleaning may be necessary to remove the tarter and if the cat remains on a raw diet the tarter should be kept to a minimum.

The second generation of cooked meat fed cats showed irregular development of skull cap and a narrowing of the malar and orbital arches. Most of the cats show longer and narrower faces. (Pottenger 22) In the second generation there is delay in loss of kitten teeth. Eruption of adult teeth was often accompanied by bleeding gums, runny noses, and fevers. The adult teeth were usually smaller and more irregular in size. (Pottenger 24)

The degenerative changes became even more pronounced in the third generation. (Pottenger 25) Can you imagine what it would be like in the fourth, fifth, and later generations?

In Pottenger's study, two kittens born to a deficient mother were separated at approximately five weeks old. One kitten remained on a deficient diet. The other kitten was forced to forage for herself. The kitten on the deficient diet showed marked dental deformity. The foraging kitten showed the effects of her deficient history, but revealed major correction in the alignment of her teeth. (Pottenger 25-26) The ripping, cutting, and tearing that a cat would do when eating his normal prey is important in development of proper dental development. I believe ripping, tearing, and cutting food is important throughout a cat's life.

Luckily, most commercial cat food is probably more nutritionally complete than the cooked meat diet Pottenger's cats were fed, however, it is still cooked and lacking in vitality.

If health problems such as dental issues, allergies, etc. began with Pottenger's cats on a cooked food diet and became progressively worst in the generations that followed, it stands to reason even kittens or young cats born to cats fed today's deficient commercial food would have similar health issues. "Doctoring" the problem by adding more bulk to the diet or following Feline Future's advice to remove raw bone and substituting a calcium product is only exasperating the problem. Substituting a cooked, processed ingredient (such as calcium citrate) for a raw ingredient (bone) is not the answer. You loose too much.

I have to wonder if Pottenger would have seen such brilliant results had he used an animal other than cats in his study. Raw ingredients are so important to cats. Cats on commercial food are exhibiting all of the health problems Pottenger's cats experienced and then some. Of course today's cats have the benefit of conventional and even holistic medicine to nurse them through their degenerative illnesses. If a cat develops dental problems, well the teeth are pulled, sometimes in extreme cases all of the cat's teeth are pulled. If a cat has diarrhea, there's drugs for that, there's enemas for constipation. There are antibiotics and steroids. There are herbs like slippery elm, pumpkin to add bulk, and people who will blame it on an ingredient that should be in a cat's daily diet, bone.

It is degenerative disease passing through generations. It's years of cooked food destroying the health of cats (and dogs and people and every other living being fed an improper diet). It's excessive use of antibiotics in kittens, vaccination of kittens before they even open their eyes, vaccination of cats every year.

I know both diarrhea and constipation can be resolved by proper use of homeopathy, especially if it is in a young cat. I have had very few issues with constipation in my cats, all resolved with homeopathy. Rarely do I have diarrhea in my cats either and if I do it almost always resolves on its own in a day or two. I'm lucky, many of my cats have been weaned on raw or have been on raw from a young age. The Pottenger Cat Studies are a valuable resource. If you do not have a copy of Pottenger's Cats, A Study in Nutrition and the study entitled, The Effect of Heat Processed Foods and Metabolized Vitamin D Milk on the Dentofacial Structures of Experimental Animals, get them and read them.

WORKS CITED:

Pottenger, Francis M., Pottenger's Cats: A Study in Nutrition; La Mesa: Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, Inc., 1983

Until later ...

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