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Myth Buster
Popular Myth:
Grain free dog food increases
the risk of heart disease.
We’ve all heard it, and some of us multiple times. And while we’re being very hesitant to call it a myth, we’ve dug up some research, just to help make sense of all the noise.
Written By: The Dog Journal
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#1. The numbers are lopsided.
Daily gentle handling of puppies from 3 days to 3 weeks of age may benefit puppy health. Daily weight checks are opportunities for gentle handling and health monitoring. During this early handling, caretakers can check for any signs of illness. Early handling may also have long-term health benefits for dogs. Stress can make dogs more susceptible to illness, but early handling may help them cope with stress better. This effect may last throughout their lifetime.
#2. Grain versus Grain Free doesn’t seem to be the actual denominator.
Most of the diets associated with the reports of non-hereditary DCM have legume seed ingredients, also called “pulses” (peas, lentils, etc.), high in their ingredient lists. These include both grain-free and grain-containing formulations. Legumes, including pulse ingredients, have been used in pet foods for many years, with no evidence to indicate they are inherently dangerous, but analysis of data reported indicates that pulse ingredients are used in many grain-free diets in greater proportion than in most grain-containing formulas. It appears as though the bigger concern would be the pulses often used to replace grains in these diets.
#3. FDA hasn’t proven enough to recall any formulations.
According, again, to the FDA, while these adverse event numbers can be a potential signal of an issue, by themselves, they do not supply sufficient data to establish a causal relationship with these reported products. Also, FDA has no definitive information indicating that the diets are inherently unsafe and need to be removed from the market.
#4. FDA hasn’t gathered enough proof to continue.
Shortly before Christmas of 2022, the FDA concluded the matter by stating that they do not intend to release further public updates until there is meaningful new scientific information to share. They also concluded that, based on the data collected and analyzed thus far, the agency believes that the potential association between diet and DCM in dogs is a complex scientific issue that may involve multiple factors.
What’s the point? Well, definitely not to persuade you to feed one food versus the other. More than that, we just wanted to dig into this topic and lay out some hard numbers and facts, and encourage you to do due diligence to the complete picture of nutrition, rather than make blanket judgements on grain free versus grain inclusive dog food. — Written by The Dog Journal
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