Question about food

[thirdseasons]

The vet told me I can feed my girl W/D science diet. I started to transition her but then decided to keep her on her Beneful Healthy Weight.

My question is what is the benefit of using a diabetic dog food vs. what you previously fed? Should I be switching the food?

My vet said that it was OK to keep her on her food, it makes it somewhat easier to regulate/or if she stops eating you know its not the food.

Thanks for any advice

[k9diabetes]

Re: Question about food

Pluses: A lot of dogs get nice blood sugar on it and it's low in fat and calories and high in fiber, which is designed to provide even blood sugar levels. It has both protein and carbs, which most dogs need to go with the way they use human insulin.

Minuses: It's expensive and, like most things, doesn't work for all dogs.

What food works well for an individual dog depends on how the dog absorbs and uses injected insulin and how the dog digests and absorbs sugar from food. Which can vary wildly. If you take two dogs and give them a tablespoon of oatmeal, for example, one dog's blood sugar may skyrocket while the other's stays nice and steady.

So whether it's WD or the current diet or something else, it's a success if the digestion of that diet and the absorption of the insulin pretty well match each other.

I know some versions of Beneful have a lot of sugar in them but others are not bad in terms of ingredients... here's Purina's web page on the Beneful Healthy Weight Dry.

http://www.beneful.com/Products/Dry-...ealthy-Weight/

Ingredients:
Ground yellow corn, chicken by-product meal, corn gluten meal, soybean hulls*, whole wheat flour, rice flour, chicken, soy flour, animal fat preserved with mixed-tocopherols (form of Vitamin E), water, meat and bone meal, propylene glycol, sugar, animal digest, dicalcium phosphate, salt, phosphoric acid, tricalcium phosphate, sorbic acid (a preservative), dried carrots, dried green beans, calcium propionate (a preservative), choline chloride, l-Lysine monohydrochloride, Vitamin E supplement, potassium chloride, zinc sulfate, yellow 5, ferrous sulfate, red 40, manganese sulfate, yellow 6, niacin, Vitamin A supplement, blue 2, calcium carbonate, copper sulfate, Vitamin B-12 supplement, calcium pantothenate, thiamine mononitrate, garlic oil, pyridoxine hydrochloride, riboflavin supplement, Vitamin D-3 supplement, calcium iodate, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of Vitamin K activity), folic acid, biotin, sodium selenite.

It does have some sugar in it, though it's a long way down the list.

The analysis is 25% crude protein, 7% crude fat, 9% crude fiber, 14% moisture. So it may be fairly similar to WD in terms of fiber and fat content.

Natalie

[buddy]

Re: Question about food

We use Hill's WD Prescription and I think it is a good food for a dog that responds slowly to insulin i.e. BG Curve looks like: 300, 350, 400, 450, 300, 250

With a dog that responds immeddiately to the insulin (i.e. 400, 100, 200, 300, 400) I don't know if Hill's WD Prescription is a proper food (at least by itself)because it appears the food digests more slowly with lesser carbs.

I hear that many vets recommend Hill's WD Prescription as a top of the line food. But it seems to me that you might need to know your dog's BG curve before you can make such an assessment.

[thirdseasons]

Re: Question about food

Natalie and Buddy thank you so much for your response's. It makes so much sense for someone who has no clue about diabetes and continuing to learn. So much to learn! but its only been 2 weeks I guess we just take it day by day.

She seems to respond quickly to the insulin. The 1st few days she was tired drank lots of water, didn't want to play just wanted to sleep. He blood sugar was at 480 when we took her back a week later she was down to 315 and thats when my vet said to increase by 1u and every since she's down from drinking so much water almost normal and is being her hyper self.