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Fresh food diets – the key to longevity and vitality for you and your pets

Pamela Dragos, DVM, CVA, CVCHM, CVMMP

8/24/20235 min read

a pile of different types of vegetables on a white surface

What are the Foundations of Health?

Diet is one of the Foundations of Health along with clean water, sleep, and exercise. It is estimated that 1/3 of all cancer in people can be prevented with a healthy diet.

Why is Diet so Important?

A healthy diet is the most important key to longevity and vitality. It is also one of the main ingredients for the treatment of illnesses. Nutrients from our food are essential cofactors for intracellular biochemical reactions and gene expression - basic functions that keep us alive.

Diet and lifestyle have a huge impact on how your DNA is expressed. This is the tenet of modern epigenetics – the study of how our environment can cause changes in how our genes work. The lifestyle and nutritional choices you make for yourself and your pet can determine whether the bad (or good) genetic issues you or your pet inherited will occur or not.

What is a Healthy Diet?

A healthy diet consists of a variety of natural, fresh, whole food ingredients that a particular species (dog, cat, human, etc.) has evolutionarily adapted to eat with a nutrient balance that is ideal for their health. People are omnivores – consuming a variety of plants and animals. Dogs and cats are carnivores - primarily animal (meat) eaters.

Feeding or eating real whole foods results in nutrient synergy. There are thousands of phytochemicals present in fresh, whole foods that work together synergistically to provide optimal health. The myriad of cooperative interactions of these various nutrients in whole food has a much greater effect on the body than ingesting the nutrients individually such as in supplement form or in processed food that artificially adds nutrients back in.

How is Chronic Disease Related to Diet?

Chronic health issues such as diabetes, cancer, neurodegenerative diseases (ALS, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease), atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), autoimmune diseases (Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis), and cardiovascular diseases, as well as aging have been linked to Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs).

AGE production is triggered inside the body by chronic ingestion of dietary carbohydrates and high blood sugar. We also accumulate AGEs when we eat processed food, as do our pets. Our contemporary Western diet and Commercial pet foods are largely heat processed “food” and as a result, contain high levels of AGEs. Heating food at high temperatures changes its chemical structure via the Maillard reaction (browning or crisping of food), producing exogenous AGEs.

Another pet food process, rendering, used to produce animal protein meals, also causes the production of Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs).

The accumulation of Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs) results in chronic inflammation in the body, causes damage to blood vessels, and triggers overproduction of free radicals and reactive oxygen species (ROS). The excessive production of ROS overwhelms the body’s antioxidant capacity and results in increased oxidative stress. Oxidative stress results in cellular dysfunction and cell death – hallmarks of chronic disease and aging.

Additionally, acrylamide is a cancer-causing chemical byproduct produced in some foods cooked at high temperatures such as pet food kibble, French fries, potato chips, and breakfast cereals.

To make matters worse, the extruding process of pet kibble, breakfast cereals, and ready-to-eat snacks results in the loss of vitamins, destruction of amino acids, and oxidation of lipids (rancidity).

So What Should I Feed My Pet?

Feed a species-specific biologically appropriate diet. Dogs and cats are carnivores. They require approximately 80% meat in their diet.
Feed fresh, whole foods – foods that are recognizable!
Feed a variety of protein sources. Rotate the type of meat or brand of food you feed your pet.
Download a current list of pet foods researched and recommended by consumer advocate, Susan Thixton here: 2023 List - TruthaboutPetFood.com (truthaboutpetfoodstore.com )
Feed a balanced diet with the help of Board Certified Veterinary Nutritionists
• Welcome to Balance It
• Animal Diet Formulator

Research Studies Confirming Fresh Food Benefits for Pets

A study by Anderson et al showed that a kibble diet was proinflammatory and a raw red meat diet was anti-inflammatory by using gene expression profiles of dog’s peripheral blood mononuclear cells.

A prospective study in the Netherlands (Nijsse et al) incidentally found that a raw meat-based diet was protective against Toxocara canis (roundworm) infections. The researchers suggested that the raw diet positively affected the dogs’ passive immunity.

A 2020 study in Finland (Hemida et al) found that “feeding a non-processed meat-based diet early in life seemed to be protective against Canine Atopic Dermatitis (allergic dermatitis), while ultra-processed carbohydrate-based diet could be considered a risk factor.”

In a study by Kim et al analyzing fecal DNA, “The microbiota of the natural diet group was characterized by higher richness and diversity compared with the commercial feed group.”

A serendipitous finding in a large multi-center clinical cancer trial lead by Dr. Erin Bannink, revealed that dogs with cancer that were fed fresh food diets faired (statistically) significantly better than dogs fed heat processed diets (kibble and canned).

Other Resources:

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References:

C. Lankhorst, Q.D. Tran, R. Havenaar, W.H. Hendriks, A.F.B. van der Poel, The effect of extrusion on the nutritional value of canine diets as assessed by in vitro indicators, Animal Feed Science and Technology, Volume 138, Issues 3–4, 2007,Pages 285-297.

Anderson RC, Armstrong KM, Young W, Maclean P, Thomas DG, Bermingham EN. Effect of kibble and raw meat diets on peripheral blood mononuclear cell gene expression profile in dogs. Vet J. 2018; 234:7–10. doi: 10.1016/j.tvjl.2018.01.00

Nijsse R, Mughini-Gras L, Wagenaar JA, Ploeger HW. Recurrent patent infections with Toxocara canis in household dogs older than six months: a prospective study. Parasit Vectors. 2016;9:531. doi: 10.1186/s13071-016-1816-7

29 Hemida M, Vuori KA, Salin S, Moore R, Anturaniemi J, Hielm-Björkman A. Identification of modifiable pre-and postnatal dietary and environmental exposures associated with owner-reported canine atopic dermatitis in Finland using a web-based questionnaire. PloS one. 2020;15(5):e0225675.

Kehm, R., Rückriemen, J., Weber, D. et al. Endogenous advanced glycation end products in pancreatic islets after short-term carbohydrate intervention in obese, diabetes-prone mice. Nutr. Diabetes 9, 9 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41387-019-0077-x

Mengstie MA, Chekol Abebe E, Behaile Teklemariam A, Tilahun Mulu A, Agidew MM, Teshome Azezew M, Zewde EA, Agegnehu Teshome A. Endogenous advanced glycation end products in the pathogenesis of chronic diabetic complications. Front Mol Biosci. 2022 Sep 15;9:1002710. doi: 10.3389/fmolb.2022.1002710. PMID: 36188225; PMCID: PMC9521189.

Aleks Shin, ... Kuanysh Kabytaev, in Advances in Clinical Chemistry, 2023.

Gentzel JB (2013) Does contemporary canine diet cause cancer? ; A review, Vet World 6(9):632-639, doi: 10.14202/ vetworld.2013.632-639

Uribarri J, Woodruff S, Goodman S, Cai W, Chen X, Pyzik R, Yong A, Striker GE, Vlassara H. Advanced glycation end products in foods and a practical guide to their reduction in the diet. J Am Diet Assoc. 2010 Jun;110(6):911-16.e12. doi: 10.1016/j.jada.2010.03.018. PMID: 20497781; PMCID: PMC3704564.

Jacobs DR Jr, Gross MD, Tapsell LC. Food synergy: an operational concept for understanding nutrition. Am J Clin Nutr. 2009 May;89(5):1543S-1548S. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.2009.26736B. Epub 2009 Mar 11. PMID: 19279083; PMCID: PMC2731586.

Kim J, An JU, Kim W, Lee S, Cho S. Differences in the gut microbiota of dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) fed a natural diet or a commercial feed revealed by the Illumina MiSeq platform. Gut Pathog. 2017;9(1):68.

Natural Nutrition, Lecture Notes. Dr. Doug Knueven, DVM. 1/20/21

Fresh food diets – the key to longevity and vitality for you and your pets

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