Supplements article 🐾 Nutrition Vet Staging

Supplements for pets – important addition or waste of time?

Well of course it’s somewhere in between. They can be life changing in certain situations, wasteful, or, on rare occasion, harmful in others.

Supplements. What are they?

According to the Food Standard Agency (FSA) they include vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fibre, essential fatty acids, and various plant and herbal extracts. The FSA do not mention probiotics, pre-biotics, or post-biotics, but for the purposes of this article I will be including them due to their vital role in gut health.

Why might our pets need a supplement?

In a perfect world the soil is rich, the air clean, the water pure, all is peace and harmony, and we feed our pets local, organic, seasonal, species appropriate foods. And then there is reality. Life is busy, healthy food is hard to come by, often expensive, and can be time-consuming to source. Most pets are not living the life of their ancestors, roaming the plain, hunting at will, drinking from streams, living in a close-knit pack. Chronic stress is a part of modern living.

The stressors

Air. Air quality affects our pets as well as ourselves. Inhaling pollutants and particulate matter (think smoking, heavy industry, household cleaning sprays, and even plug-in air fresheners) puts a good deal of stress on the body via the respiratory system. Frequently I have found indoor cats who come into my clinic with breathing problems are cured simply by switching off those plug-ins and swapping out those anti-bacterial sprays. Rural areas can be better, but even then, crop types such as rapeseed with its strong aroma and heavy pollen load, and spraying fields with agrochemicals can cause a good deal of respiratory distress, especially in horses and asthmatic cats (which came first – the asthma or the pollutant?)

Water. Water purity. How many of our dogs and cats will only drink or, where available, choose to drink from the water outside that has been filtered through a plant pot, from puddles or a pond? Tap water in some areas can fur up a kettle in a matter of weeks. Other tap water exists where you can actually smell the additives (London for instance). An indoor cat in a big city is particularly prone to disease from poor quality water ingestion. They tend to drink less due to its poor taste which puts a lot of strain on the kidneys, and the water itself may cause bladder or kidney stones to form. Indoor water fountains can be a life saver here since the water is filtered and flowing, making the water a lot more palatable.

Soil. Our soils are now so nutrient depleted that the vast majority of us, and consequently our pets, are ending up with chronic nutritional deficiencies (especially minerals such as Magnesium), despite eating a diet that 80 years ago would have contained everything we need. Thankfully biodynamic farming practices are on the rise, so steadily things are improving, but it is likely to be quite a while before the optimal soil nutrient levels return.

The local environment

Undoubtedly an largely outdoor life is optimal for our dogs and cats. However, again, contaminants in today’s modern society abound. In cities our barefoot pets absorb chemicals and toxins through the skin and when they lick their paws, into their gut too. Sniffing the ground also allows entry through the nose into the airways. In rural areas there are different chemicals and contaminants, usually a lesser load, but they are still a stressor to the body.

Lifestage. As with us, as our pets age, degenerative process is part of the cycle of life. Digestive processes become less efficient, eye sight wanes, muscles lose strength, joints wear out, and back pain can develop. Supplements can help. Many older pets respond well to an essential fatty acid supplement that helps reduce inflammation in their joints, for instance.

Genes. Humans and pets can suffer from genetic weaknesses or abnormalities. Many Dalmatians, contain a genetic defect that results in the formation of urate bladder stones (hyperuricosuria), and some Border Terriers have genes that cause severe gluten-sensitivity (canine epileptoid cramping syndrome). There are many more.

So NOW do you think your pet might benefit from a supplement or two?

Buying the best quality diet you can afford for your pet is of course foundational to giving them the best chance of a healthy life. Supplements though can often help them further, as I hope I have shown above. So many diseases start with a leaky gut (see my previous article on this topic). Supplements are incredibly useful in helping the gut to heal.

^{Supplements – what to give and when}

Most nutrient components, such as vitamins and minerals are involved in a host of functions too numerous to mention. Take magnesium for instance. It has over 600! The mammalian body, as with all things in nature, is a complex system, so there really isn’t any room for reductionist thinking. It can be complicated!

Nutrition tests for pets

In human medicine there are many tests for nutritional deficiencies. In pets very few. And even then not all tests reflect the level of the nutrient in the body. Take vitamin B12 for example. It is a vitamin that is located inside the cell. The veterinary test for Vitamin B12 is a blood test, so just tests the level in blood. We know that if levels in the blood are low, then the pet has a severe vitamin B12 deficiency. However chronic low levels cannot be accurately tested as there is no test that calculates the level of vitamin B12 in the cell itself.

So what is the best approach for our pets?

Working with clinical symptoms and then proceeding with a targeted and monitored bespoke nutritional approach, in the right hands, can work well. In the diseased pet supplements included in the dietary treatment protocol are aimed to work synergistically, and may only be required until the pet is fully recovered.

SOME COMMONLY USED SUPPLEMENTS TO MAXIMIZE HEALTH AND TREAT DISEASE

Probiotics are friendly bacteria and yeasts that are vital in maintaining a healthy flora in the gut, thus assisting the digestive process. There are studies showing great effect of targeted bacterial and yeast probiotic supplementation in treating disease, even the severe, often fatal disease, Parvovirus. Much work is being done on the canine gut microbiome to work out its components and their specific functions. This information will allow a more accurate treatment regimen.

Pre-biotics are foods for the probiotics, enabling them to grow and multiply. Typically they are made up of foods that your pet does not digest or absorb. Different types of fibre and fermented products are examples of these.

Post-biotics consist of the so-called ‘waste’ components left behind after absorption of nutrients, pre-biotics and pro-biotics. These products include the B vitamins, vitamin K, free fatty acids (FFA), amino acids, and anti-microbial peptides (which keep harmful bacteria in-check). As you can see, post-biotics are also vital for our pet’s health. These can be found in foods such as yoghurt, kefir and sauerkraut. Be aware though that for our pets they have to be the right versions of these foods. The devil is in the detail. So, no sweeteners, no onions, no casein A1 containing dairy products, for instance.

And of course the other form of supplementation of postbiotics is by faecal microbiome transplant, which I have successfully used in clinic and is gaining popularity. It involves fertilising the lower bowel with a faecal slurry with faeces from a healthy dog, that then re-populating the gut with those all important components that make up the postbiotic flora.

Vitamins

Vitamin B12

This is one of my favourite vitamins. I use it often, as part of my protocol for treating both acute and chronic disease, especially in older pets. It comes in 4 different forms, all of which have different benefits. In most oral preparations for pets cyanocobalamin is used. This is the synthetic version and in sensitive individuals can be harmful due to the micro dose of cyanide present. The injectable hydroxycobalamin version tends to work best in most patients in my experience.

Essential fatty acids

Pets with skin issues can really benefit from the addition of these supplements. The multiple functions of essential fatty acids include better absorption of fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K), effective cell metabolism, and as a major source of energy. If your pet has a concurrent gut issue or is a fussy eater spot-on preparations are also available. It is worth noting that cats and dogs have different essential fatty acid requirements. Cats have a higher omega 6 requirement, and that is found in fish oil. Again, a word of warning. The source of the fish oil matters, as heavy metals (eg mercury) and toxins (eg Bisphenol A) may be present in certain fish, which then end up in the supplement.

Minerals

Calcium must be at an optimal level for all pregnant and nursing animals. If the level is too low they will develop life-threatening seizures. It is one of the true emergencies that we see in general practice, and it is incredibly rewarding to see the turnaround after the calcium injection has been given. However, if the level in the diet is too high this is also detrimental as irreversible skeletal deformities can occur. Calcium supplementation in the late stages of pregnancy used to be very popular with breeders, but thankfully has now fallen out of favour for this reason. A good quality diet is all that is needed throughout these reproductive life stages.

Zinc problems are mostly seen due to deficiency. There are 3 types. Genetic (commonly Huskies and Malamutes), poor diet, and diets or supplements that affect the absorption of zinc (eg calcium). They are generally quite readily treated.

Magnesium is an example of a mineral that is very rarely needing to be supplemented in our dogs and cats, and can be harmful if given without knowing if it is truly needed. In cows however, it is a common deficiency.

Pancreatic enzymes

Some of our dogs and cats are so depleted from gut disease that they have great difficulty breaking down nutrients and then aborbing them into the body. The pancreas is an organ that sits alongside the upper small intestine to help the breakdown of food by producing enzymes that enter the gut when food arrives. The current accepted wisdom is to only use pancreatic enzyme supplementation for the disease called Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency (EPI). It is my view that in many of the severe gut diseases I see (think leaky gut syndrome) that the pancreas needs a good deal of help, so I supplement these patients with these enzymes for a more rapid recovery.

A note of caution about Herbs

Using herbal remedies, as with the combining of some supplements (Calcium and Zinc for instance), need to be treated with care since they can interfere with the function of certain medications and cause harm. Best to contact your vet or have a consultation with a herbal vet before administering them if your pet is on medication. https://herbalvets.org.uk/find-a-herbal-vet/.

And finally, a word about sourcing supplements

Sourcing supplements has to be done with care, so as to avoid buying products that do not contain what it says on the label, and are may contain contaminants. Supplements are not regulated in the U.K. and studies have shown that there is a lot of bad stuff out there. The basic rule of thumb to minimize this risk is to go for a reputable brand with third party testing of its products.

I hope the usefulness of supplements, when used appropriately, is now self-evident, and that it is clear that they work best when given in a thoughtful and targeted way. This is what I do. Let’s help your pet thrive today.

Dr Bella O’Connell MRCVS, bella@thenutritionvet.co.uk.

Bibliography & References

Food Standards Agency Supplement definition

https://www.food.gov.uk/business-guidance/food-supplements#what-a-food-supplement-is

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