Nutrition

Owning a pet is a lifelong journey. Help set clients' direction by offering strong care recommendations on nine critical topics.

Hyperlipidemia is the increased concentration of triglyceride (hypertriglyceridemia), cholesterol (hypercholesterolemia), or both in the blood.

Months into the pet food recall, the veterinary world is out of sorts, with some dry and wet food varieties still off the shelves. But amid the frustrations, there's some good news: The recall has shifted clients' focus from cost to quality of their pets' diets.

Use this sample nutrition questionnaire to learn more about what your clients are feeding their pets--and how much.

Washington, D.C. - 7/3/07 - The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) signed the first U.S./European agreement for assessing food safety risk. This is the first formal international cooperative agreement EFSA has signed and the first formal step in cooperation between the two bodies.

Don't let silence prevent you from helping patients. Learn to comfortably talk to owners about their pets' obesity.

Seattle, Wash. - 6/11/07 - The American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM) 25th Annual Forum set an attendance record even before the hosting of the featured pet food recall panel, scheduled for Saturday, June 9.

Melamine and cyanuric acid: An update on what practitioners need to know

Check here for updates from Veterinary Economics on the pet food recall

San Diego, Calif. – The WALTHAM UC Veterinary Medical Center – San Diego Clinical Nutrition Program is now open to provide pets, clients and DVMs with a new resource for veterinary health - nutritional treatment for ill or overweight pets.

C.A. Tony Buffington, professor of veterinary sciences at The Ohio State University, shares his thoughts on nutrition issues facing pets.

The expanding pet-food recall that started with Ontario-based Menu Foods Inc. has prompted the government to consider whether pet foods should be regulated in Canada.

How do I respond when clients ask if they can cook their pets' food?

National Report - A national survey to gauge the impact of the contaminated pet food following the massive recall was launched late yesterday.

Menu Foods pet-food recall was estimated at snaring 1 percent of all pet food. As the recall list grew, so did DVM Newsmagazine's coverage. Click here for more coverage

National Report - 4/9/07 - In response to pet-owner concerns after the large-scale recall of some pet foods, the American Veterinary Medical Association issued guidelines on making home-cooked meals for pets while reiterating that non-recalled pet foods remain the best option.

National Report - 4/4/07 - Members of Congress are joining a rapidly expanding hue and cry over last month's recall of tainted pet foods, with at least three lawmakers demanding answers from the Food and Drug Administration and Menu Foods.

From Veterinary Medicine--Aminopterin and melamine: What practitioners need to know (Audio Clip)

Equine colic is "responsible for more deaths in horses than any disease group except old age." That's how Nathaniel A. White, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVS, described the insidious nature of the condition in a 2005 presentation to the American Association of Equine Practitioners in Quebec.

Two substances, aminopterin and melamine, have been identified in some of the tested samples of the recalled pet foods manufactured by Menu Foods (www.menufoods.com). How these substances entered the pet food chain hasn't been determined. Investigators also don't know whether these substances are the sole cause of the illness associated with ingestion of the recalled food; other as yet unknown factors are likely to be involved.

National Report - 4/1/07 - Worried pet owners nationwide flooded veterinary practices with calls last month, after nearly 1 percent of the pet food sold in the United States was recalled and later reported to have been contaminated with a rodent-killing toxin.

New York - The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first drug for managing canine obesity, a common health-threatening condition in millions of dogs in the United States.

Your pet is exhibiting clinical signs that could be consistent with an adverse reaction to food.

Most practitioners recognize that some dogs and cats with pruritus or gastrointestinal conditions can be managed either in part or fully by feeding a limited-antigen diet.

Veterinary Economics asked some folks in the field how they're handling the pet food recall. Here are their tips from the trenches.

Gastrointestinal parasites are insidious causes of disease in cats. Protozoan parasitic infections in particular can be difficult to detect because there are often no signs of disease, or the signs, such as diarrhea, are nonspecific. But these infections must be uncovered and cured before they cause serious disease or spread to housemates or even owners.

To ensure that dog and cat owners know what their pets should be eating, we give new clients nutrition profiles specific to their pets.

Timely treatment of ill neonates will provide the best chances of survival. Although time-consuming, intensive care of these puppies and kittens, which requires serial monitoring, can be extremely rewarding.

If an indoor cat has a low-protein, high-carbohydrate diet and nothing to do, the inevitable will ensue.

DAVIS, CALIF. - 04/15/05 - Researchers have identified the mechanism that allows animals to recognize the amino-acid content in foods. Neurophysiologist Dorothy Gietzen and colleagues at the University of California-Davis (UC-Davis) School of Veterinary Medicine say the discovery has implications for the betterment of human health, particularly in epileptics, some of whom are influenced by amino-acid deficiencies.