How can a low-carb diet help manage or prevent diabetes in dogs?
As diabetes increases among dogs, understanding what causes diabetes in dogs — and how to feed our dogs to prevent diabetes — is essential to their health and wellbeing. Canine nutrition researcher and professional sled dog racer, Dr. Mark Roberts, Ph.D., explains the metabolic processes that lead to diabetes — and how a low-carb diet for dogs can help.
Too long, won’t read? WATCH Dr. Roberts instead!
Key takeaways:
Dogs develop diabetes as a result of high-carb diets that create persistent pancreatic stress.
Low-carb dog food will help reduce blood glucose levels, leading to less pancreatic stress.
The ideal diet for preventing diabetes in dogs will contain very low carbohydrates, and higher amounts of protein (up to 30%) and fat (up to 70%), on a dry matter basis.
What Causes diabetes in Dogs?
Diabetes can basically be described as involving the interaction between glucose and insulin. The energy that a dog needs can be provided by glucose, being used by the animal’s cells. Insulin is critical for this to happen, essentially enabling the glucose to enter the cells (1). A simple way to think of this, is that insulin is the key to let glucose into cells. When insulin levels are insufficient to allow glucose to enter the cells, it builds up in the blood. The pancreas plays a vital role here, as it’s responsible for producing insulin. Therefore, if it’s not working correctly, a dog can become diabetic.
In dogs, as in humans, there are two types of diabetes, type 1 and type 2. Type 2 diabetes is usually due dogs becoming overweight or obese, in addition to consuming too much processed carbohydrates. With this type of diabetes, dogs are still able to produce insulin, but the body becomes resistant to it because there is too much sugar coming in. Type 1 diabetes, in contrast, is when the pancreas of a dog fails to produce insulin appropriately. This means glucose can’t get into the body’s cells to be used for energy. At this point, a dog will require a lifetime of insulin injections to enable the glucose to enter the animals cells (2). Evidently, preventing diabetes in dogs is really important for their health and wellbeing.
Although there are several reasons for diabetes, including being genetically predisposed, having immune mediated disease and taking certain medications, diet can play a pivotal role. Diets that are high in processed carbohydrates, can lead to increasing blood glucose, in turn resulting in a greater insulin production to drive this concentration down (3). Consequently, this places stress on the beta cells of the pancreas which produces insulin, and if persistent, will lead them reducing production, with eventually becoming exhausted.
What is the best diet to prevent diabetes in dogs?
The answer is relatively simple, in that if blood glucose levels are reduced, less insulin is produced, the pancreas is not stressed (4), and the risk of developing diabetes is removed. So, what aspects of a diet can help this be achieved? The first step is to reduce the carbohydrate content of a diet to 3-5% (at most) on a dry matter basis (DMB). The source of these carbohydrates should be unprocessed and fibrous, with certain fruits and vegetables being appropriate. Next, the protein content of a diet should be sufficient, to ensure the numerous functions the macronutrient facilitates, are optimal. A protein content of 30 -35% DMB is suitable in this case.
The final macronutrient proving energy to a dog is fat, with 65 -70% DMB the target. Fat has a crucial role in reducing the concentration of glucose, by essentially “switching” off the reliance a dog has on glucose for energy. This is achieved due to a high fat diet and the low carbohydrate content of a diet, with the fat becoming the major source of energy. When this occurs, the liver undertakes a chemical process, whereby energy is regulated and ketone bodies are generated from the breaking down of fatty acids, serving as an alternative fuel source. In essence, this means a dog’s body is burning fats instead of glucose for energy.
Fat is a more regulated source of energy for a dog
In addition to this, a diet with fat as the dominate macronutrient, can also sythesise glucose from fat in the blood of dogs called triglycerides. It achieves this by breaking the triglycerides into three fatty acids and glycerol(5), with glycerol providing the glucose for energy. Moreover, certain amino acids from protein, such as alanine can also be biosynthesized resulting in glucose (6). Although a dog can still have glucose concentrations from these processes, it is important to understand that these are still much lower and much better regulated than if fed a highly processed, high carbohydrate diet.
How do Bones & Co. 1:1 raw recipes fit in?
Diets of a high-fat, moderate protein, low-carb composition negate high glucose concentrations, with less insulin being required, reducing any stress on a dog’s pancreas, all factors which are highly beneficial in diminishing the danger of diabetes developing.
Bones & Co. 1:1 raw recipes are formulated with a 1:1 fat-to-protein ratio by weight — meaning that when you look at the Guaranteed Analysis, the percent fat vs percent protein is a 1:1 (or slightly higher) ratio. Because 1g fat is more calorically dense than 1g protein (9 calories per gram fat vs 4 calories per gram protein), this results in a diet that is approximately 70% fat and 30% protein on a dry matter basis:
References
1. Nelson, R. W., & Reusch, C. E. (2014). Animal models of disease: classification and etiology of diabetes in dogs and cats. Journal of endocrinology, 222(3), T1-T9.
2. Qadri, K., Ganguly, S., Praveen, P. K., & Wakchaure, R. (2015). Diabetes mellitus in dogs and its associated complications: A review. Int. J. Rec. Biotech, 3(4), 18-22.
3. Nguyen, P., Dumon, H., Biourge, V., & Pouteau, E. (1998). Glycemic and insulinemic responses after ingestion of commercial foods in healthy dogs: influence of food composition. The Journal of nutrition, 128(12), 2654S-2658S.
4. Hewson-Hughes, A. K., Gilham, M. S., Upton, S., Colyer, A., Butterwick, R., & Miller, A. T. (2011). The effect of dietary starch level on postprandial glucose and insulin concentrations in cats and dogs. British Journal of Nutrition, 106(S1), S105-S109.
5. Longo, R., Peri, C., Cricrì, D., Coppi, L., Caruso, D., Mitro, N., ... & Crestani, M. (2019). Ketogenic diet: a new light shining on old but gold biochemistry. Nutrients, 11(10), 2497.
6. Shulman, G. I., Lacy, W. W., Liljenquist, J. E., Keller, U., Williams, P. E., & Cherrington, A. D. (1980). Effect of glucose, independent of changes in insulin and glucagon secretion, on alanine metabolism in the conscious dog. The Journal of Clinical Investigation, 65(2), 496-505.