What Foods Cause Kidney Failure in Dogs
Kidney Disease in Dogs Part 1/3: Why Dry food Ruined your Dog's kidneys….
This is a three parter guys so grab a cup of tea and settle in. This first part explains why dry food put your dog in this position.The second part of our kidney disease in dogs series of articles explains why the low protein dry food your vet is trying to sell you goes directly against the available science on kidney disease in dogs. Understanding these first two parts is crucial to you having the impetus to try advice I give you in part 3! But if you're already convinced and just want the solution, feel free to jump straight to part 3: the best nutritional advice for kidney disease in dogs.
I'mDr Conor Brady, a canine nutrition specialist and you've just landed on one of the busiest articles on my site. I've seen and successfully treated an awful lot of kidney disease in dogs. Below I tell you everything I know, including not only why your dog is likely sick (something I bet hasn't been discussed with you yet) but how to get him back on track . I have made this available to you for free. How do I benefit? Articles like this get folk on to my site. If they need specialised help theybook me for a consultation. I put a couple of ads for products I co-formulated in the article and s hould a product be necessary that can't be found locally I will recommend it online get a tiny percentage of any sales made.
What do the kidneys do?
Kidneys sieve waste from the blood. They remove the waste products from metabolism, keeping the blood clean and able to do its job. They also filter out excess salt, toxins and any debris from the constantly active immune system. All the extracted waste is excreted in the urine. Kidneys, in a nut shell, are the filtration system of the body.
Symptoms of Kidney Disease in Dogs 
- Increase in thirst
- Increase in urination and occasional incontinence
- Retching and diarrhoea (from excess water consumption)
- Standing near water bowls but unable to drink more
- A reduced appetite
- Weight Loss
- Poor Body and Coat Condition
- Lethargy
The Cause of Kidney Disease in Dogs…
In veterinary circles, the jury is still out on why so many pets today are suffering from kidney disease. Cats are twice as likely to get kidney disease than dogs (Veterinary Medical Data Base, University of Purdue) which largely rules out a genetics cause. If genetics were solely to blame, then dogs should suffer more than cats, as they have been isolated into smaller gene pools than cats. The fact that cats are more prone to the illness than dogs, suggests that an environmental factor is most certainly involved.
Shockingly between 0.37% of (O'Neil et al. 2003) and up to 3.74% of dogs are affected by chronic kidney disease (Sosnar 2003), each day, which is around five times the rate we see in humans (www.kidney.org).
The fact is, organs, and certainly kidneys, are like car tyres, the more they wear the more they tear. So to avoid (or treat) the disease you need to reduce the amount of work the kidney has to do. With this in mind, and in no particular order, here are 9 reasons why choosing a dry, ultra-processed, cereal-based food stuff over a fresh, species-appropriate diet is going to potentially cause kidney disease in dogs.
9 Reasons Why Dry Dog Food Causes Kidney Disease in Dogs
Reason 1: A Diet Void of Water for CKF Patients Goes Against Every Principle In The Book
The very nature of the disease demands that lots of water is passed through the kidneys. There is nobody in human medicine or nutrition who would recommend a dry diet for kidney disease sufferers. This is very likely why cats, with their lower thirst drive, are more prone to kidney disease than dogs (largely due to urolyte crystals). Studies show cats produce smaller amounts of concentrated urine, "and this may be particularly marked when they are fed dry (extruded) diets" (Burger et al. 1980; Gaskell 1985), than we see in dogs (Stevenson et al. 2003).
Based on fundamental principles, increasing the urine volume for a given solute load should decrease the level of saturation and hence risk of crystalluria (Hawthorn and Markwell 2004). Urine volume is determined to a large extent by water intake, so increasing water intake should result in an increased volume of urine that is further diluted, and an increase in the frequency of urination. As the authors conclude "…increasing the water intake showed clear benefits in studies of human urolithiasis".
The same applies to dogs. Stevenson et al. (2003) found that by increasing dietary moisture in Schnauzers and lab retrievers, there was a significant increase in the total moisture intake and a reduction in the urine specific gravity. It also led to a reduction in oxalate and calcium oxide formation. All in all a bonus for the kidneys!
A human nutritionist would never advise anything but fresh food with plenty of water for kidney disease. That pet food manufacturers and sadly vets do, epitomises how bad a problem we (and dogs) have at the moment.
Reason 2: High Cereal (Carbohydrate) Diets are Directly Linked to Struvite Crystal Formation
High starch diets stimulate the formation of struvite crystals in cats (Funaba et al. 2004) while high-protein diets have the ability to increase the solubility of struvite crystals in cats (Funaba et al. 1996).
Calcium oxalate stones and their evil twin struvite crystals are proven to be a result of a high carbohydrate, cereal based diet. Stones have been found, in research, to be caused by pet food companies acidic dry pet food. A high carbohydrate diet alkalises your pets' urine which can cause struvite crystals in their bladder, preventing them from passing urine. To counteract this, pet food companies began acidifying their products. Acidifying pet food has been linked to an increase in calcium oxalate stones which can cause kidney failure (largely in cats).
As well as this, carbohydrates lead to high blood sugar levels. Constantly high blood insulin levels (which balance soaring blood sugar) are strongly linked to kidney disease in humans. Carnivorous dogs living on a diet of 50% carbohydrate are expected to suffer, in the very least, the same as humans from this.
Reason 3: Grain Mould Is Linked to Kidney Disease
Grain is the enemy of your dog's kidneys. Ochratoxin (OTA) is produced by moulds (Penicillium and Aspergillus) and these are well established to affect kidney function. These moulds are common not only on the ingredients used in dry food but also on finished products as soon as the bag is opened. In a study of 26 canned foods and 17 dry pet foods, OTA was detected in 47% of the samples (Razzaziet al. 2001).
Reason 4: Dry Dog and Cat food salt levels begin at 1% and Salt Destroys Kidneys
The level of salt in dry dog food starts at 1% (NaCl), the same salt content as sea water. This destroys kidneys and without it pets wouldn't touch the stuff. We are warned that if we eat 9g of salt a day, instead of 6g, our kidneys will pack in as the kidneys use salt to run their filtration system (via osmosis). Excess salt reduces the kidneys' ability to suck in water. This results in higher blood pressure, due to the extra fluid and strain on the delicate blood vessels leading to the kidneys (as well as causing all the cardio-vascular diseases).
The average labrador requires 1g of salt per day for normal function (NRC 2006). If a labrador is fed 500g of a dry food containing 1% salt, then they are consuming 5 times their RDA of salt in every single meal. This figure multiplies to ten for puppies. Unless dogs are spitting salt out of their noses like marine iguanas, this is very bad news for struggling kidneys. Dry food companies recognise this and so sell reduced sodium dry food for when the problem sets in, which is nice of them.
Reason 5: Dry Fed Dogs are Proven to Undergo Significantly More Immune System Reactions Than Fresh Fed Dogs, Which Means More Work for the Kidneys
Dry fed dogs are shown in trial, by the largest veterinary laboratory in the world (ANTECH 2003), to undergo significantly more immune reactions than fresh fed dogs (largely due to wheat gluten but also cooked proteins and food chemicals). They're also shown to undergo significantly more immunological stress (University of Helsinki). This means more immune debris needs to be cleared by the kidneys of a dry fed dog each day. Antibodies cling to antigens, and make their way to the kidneys, to be excreted. If these arrive in great numbers they clog up the filtration highway at the kidneys. These traffic jams cause damage to the kidneys.
That is why it is necessary to avoid infections when a dog is suffering with kidney disease.
Reason 6: 9 out of 10 Dogs are Dry Fed and 9 out of 10 Dogs Have Periodontal Disease by Three Years. Periodontal Disease is Linked to Kidney Disease
We know that bad gums are linked to kidney disease in humans. Gum disease is a constant threat to the immune system. Due to it bacteria pose a constant threat to the body through the body capillary rich gum line. This means patients with kidney disease have a constantly aroused and engaged immune system fighting back the daily threat. Not only do bacteria get past the defences and lodge in kidneys but the constant battle creates an enormous amount of immuno-debris, which must be cleaned up by the kidneys, every day.
Reason 7: Cooked Meat is Hard to Digest and is Antigenic to the Body
Dogs are carnivores. As such, they thrive lots of fresh meat. Now all they are offered (via dry food) is a token, often twice-cooked meat derivative. Dry food is a heavily processed and cooked meal. Cooking meat protein results in proteins cross-linking, making the protein tougher as a whole and more resistant to digestion (think of chewing on that over-cooked piece of steak). Add to that, the fact that enzymes in the meal (cells that normally aid with digestion) are obliterated by cooking, as are prebiotics and probiotics that would normally feed micro-flora (which assist in food processing and digestion in the gut). Unsurprisingly Stroucken et al. (1996) found cooking during the extrusion of dog food pellets reduced the digestibility of protein in the pellet.
This is one of the reasons cooked meat is shown to greatly reduce Glomerular Filtration Rates of kidneys, which is not good news if they are in trouble and you badly them running as well as they can.
Do you know what meat-meal is?! Learn more about this crap meat ingredient…
Partial digestion of the protein results in half-digested protein strands hanging around the system. The immune system around the gut doesn't tolerate strange, little proteins as they might be baddies, so an immune reaction kicks in. This ultimately results in dogs reporting in with "chicken" and "beef" allergies. Imagine that? It should be like a cow being allergic to grass, but it's a casually accepted quirk in the modern (dry-fed) dog. The kidneys must clear all of this immune debris away. Every meal..
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What Foods Cause Kidney Failure in Dogs
Source: https://dogsfirst.ie/health-issues/kidney-disease-dogs/
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