Prescription Diets May Be Nutritionally Deficient

from Conor Brady, Dog’s First

THE CHANCES ARE YOUR PRESCRIPTION DIET IS NUTRITIONALLY DEFICIENT, WHY DON’T VETS CARE?!

In 2004, Hodgkinson et al. randomly selected of 33 popular brands of dry food and noted 29 of the 33 failed to meet AAFCO’s minimum nutritional standards, including inadequate amounts of protein and amino acids, fats (including linoleic acid) and minerals. They found:

  • 2 products contained inadequate levels of calcium

  • 7 had an incorrect calcium to phosphorus ratio

  • 7 had insufficient zinc

  • 12 had too little iodine

  • 13 had too little potassium

At best, the authors concluded, 73% of “complete” dry dog foods might provide the minimum amount of nutrition for dogs at specified maintenance level for a specific amount of time.

Luckily for pets, no doubt thanks to rigorous oversight from the veterinary industry (sic), things have improved today.

In 2016, Davies et al. randomly sampled 177 brands of “complete” dry food sold in the UK and found just 62% of complete dry (and 94% of complete cans!) pet foods now failed to provide the minimum amount of nutrition needed to sustain a dog over a six months feed trial.

62%.

In their study, Davies et al. (2017) checked out the veterinary “gold-standard” prescription diets but they fared no better - 15 of the 21 tested (61%) failed to meet AAFCO’s minimums nutrition standards.

While the authors blanked out the company information to protect the guilty, you can search the document below for “Royal Canin” or “Hills” and you will see the box light up beside the prescription diet in question. Doing it this way, we see that 8 of the fails were attributed to Hills and 5 to Royal Canin.

https://static-content.springer.com/…/41598_2017_17159…

So, the notion that these premium-priced “prescription” diets offer anything better to your bet is borderline-nonsense (and the word itself is being tested in court now for the second time…fingers crossed).

In fact, Krogdahl et al. set out to explore if there were any differences whatsoever between the nutrient digestibility of cheaper and therefore apparently lower-quality dry food FOR PUPPIES sold in supermarkets and more expensive (and thus higher-quality??) dry foods sold by vets. They found NO DIFFERENCE in the dietary level of nutrients. Nor did they find any difference in the digestibility of those nutrients between the types. Furthermore, the protein and amino acid content and digestibility were similar between the two types…and that is, deficient. They looked at Eukanuba Puppy, Proplan Puppy, royal Canin Puppy and Hill’s Puppy, and found that of the amount of protein stated on the label (at or within a couple of percentage points from the MINIMUM a pups needs to get through a 6mth trial in a cage), only 75% of it was available to the animal:

  • Eukanuba Puppy stated 27.9% protein, only 20.3% was actually available

  • Proplan Puppy stated 26.2% protein, only 20.1% was available to the test animals

  • Royal Canin Puppy stated 21.7% protein, only 16.7% was available

  • Hill’s Puppy stated 26.8% protein, only 20.8% was available to the animal.

I wonder what the consequences are for a pup trying to grow a solid frame on below the minimum amount of protein for the job?!


If you’re ready to improve your dog’s nutrition or work through the issues that caused your vet to suggest a prescription diet in the first place… reach out to me. We have many options to consider.

Dana