![]() ![]() Occasionally, dogs fed vegan or vegetarian diets have been taurine deficient and suffering heart disease. Other dogs have also been found to have taurine deficiency when fed similar lamb-and-rice diets. One group of Newfoundlands that were fed a commercial lamb-and-rice diet developed taurine deficiency and reversible cardiomyopathy. Since that time, specific categories of diets have been sporadically implicated in heart disease. When supplemented with high doses of taurine, these dogs resolved their cardiomyopathy in many cases. ![]() Taurine is typically efficiently recycled in the small intestine, but various dietary factors can affect this process. Investigators suspected that these breeds were unable to synthesize taurine in amounts needed to replace losses. This was unexpected because dogs, unlike cats, are able to synthesize taurine from other sulfur-containing amino acids in their food. It is occasionally diagnosed when cat owners feed unbalanced diets (e.g., boiled poultry or vegetarian diets).Ī few years later, certain breeds of dogs were found to also have dilated cardiomyopathy in association with taurine deficiency. Subsequently, taurine-associated dilated cardiomyopathy in cats has all-but disappeared. This discovery resulted in pet food companies adding more taurine to the foods they manufacture. However, some commercial cat foods at that time contained insufficient amounts of taurine causing dilated cardiomyopathy and other health issues. Being carnivores, domestic, feral and wild cats that hunt for their food derive adequate taurine from their diet. Taurine is plentiful in most animal tissues. Cats are unable to make their own taurine (just like people can’t make their own vitamin C) and must ingest it to stay healthy. Thirty years ago, veterinarians recognized deficiency of an amino acid (taurine) as the most common cause of dilated cardiomyopathy in cats. ![]()
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