Nutritional strategies for managing arthritis in cats

According to Kristin Kirkby Shaw, DVM, PhD, MS, DACVS-SA, DACVSMR, founder of Canine Arthritis Resources and Education—an organization offering free educational materials for veterinarians and dog owners on osteoarthritis in dogs—one multimodal management approach veterinarians can adopt to help manage arthritis in feline patients is implementing modifications to the patient’s diet. As Kirkby Shaw explains in this short video, key nutritional strategies include maintaining a healthy weight through calorie reduction or a weight loss diet and using fish oil or joint-specific diets that contain omega-3 fatty acids.

Below is the interview transcript, which has been lightly edited for improved clarity.

Kristin Kirkby Shaw, DVM, PhD, MS, DACVS-SA, DACVSMR: One of the ways that we want to provide a multimodal management for arthritis for cats is [by] including nutritional modifications. And the 2 primary ways we're going to modify nutrition, or approach from a nutritional standpoint, are:

1. making sure that the cat's not overweight. And that is usually going to be a matter of reducing the calories or using a weight loss diet—so making sure the cat's not overweight using an appropriate diet that they will eat that is appropriate for any other comorbidities that they may have. So something like k/d [kidney care] plus j/d [joint care] [is] a diet that I've used for cats.
2. And speaking of that, the j/d portion of that is the omega-3 content. So omega-3 fatty acids are really the only joint supplement that has been shown to be effective for OA [(osteoarthritis)] pain in cats or dogs. So, adding fish oil to the diet or using a joint-specific diet that would be a good recommendation for them.

To hear more from Kirkby Shaw on osteoarthritis in cats, check out:

• 4 steps to diagnosing feline osteoarthritis
• Signs a cat may have arthritis
• Feline arthritis remains underdiagnosed
• How osteoarthritis affects cats