Hill's prescription diets

2009-11-03T11:34:00.004Z

Hill's Prescription Diet w/d

W/d is suitable for the management of a range of conditions:

Obesity Prevention
Fibre responsive diseases, eg Diabetes mellitus, hyperlipidaemia,colitis and constipation
Lymphangiectasia
Pancreatitis with hyperlipidaemia
Struvite urolithiasis in dogs

Let's start with a short explanation for the above conditions, so we can understand better the way w/d diet works in these.

Obesity is an obvious one, although the emphasis is on PREVENTION in this case, not the treatment. The diet is suitable for maintaining the optimal bodyweight once achieved by other means/diets.

Diabetes is also a well known condition, usually caused by the insufficient production of insulin in the pancreas, which is a short chain protein that helps the cells in the body to pick sugar up from the bloodstream. Glucose is the main energy source for the cells to work. So in diabetes there is a lot of sugar in the blood but the cells cannot take it up due to lack of the insulin. (There are other forms of Diabetes mellitus but this is the most common and most important for us).

Colitis is the inflammation of the large bowels

Constipation is self explanatory

Lympangiectasia is a condition, where the lymph vessels, especially the tiny ones in and around the intesines are dilated, therefore the flow of the lymp is slowed down. The importance of the lympatic circulation lies in the fact that it is the lymp that picks up and carries lipids from the intestines. Lipids are important nutrients themselves and also serve as solvents for other nutrients eg certain vitamins (A,D,E and K), so if the lymph circulation is impaired, the uptake of these important factors also suffers from it. This condition is also a factor in protein losing enteropathies, where the patient is losing a great amount of vital proteins through the intestines.

Pancreatitis with hyperlipidaemia is probably known to some of the readers. It is an inflammatory disease of the pancreas, that can be very severe, sometimes life threatening. As it is the pancreas that produces important digestive enzymes, including the ones that digest the fat in the food, its lack of function results in impaired lipid digestion. Therefore the fat molecules that hasn't been broken down to basic parts appear in the bloodstream in a higher concentration. This poses a risk for the vessels and lack of available "building stones" for the cells.

Struvite urolithiasis in dogs is a condition where bladder stones start to form, causing secondary problems. This type of bladder stones (struvite) is soluble in acidic pH.

Now let's see how this diet can help in these conditions.

- w/d has reduced energy and fat levels, therefore can help to avoid weight gain (obesity) and also spares the body of dealing with the digestion of fat (pancreatitis, lymphangiectasia).

- The diet has increased fibre content, the advantages are as follow:

Obesity: bulking effect, helps to feel full, avoiding hunger

Diabetes: fibre releases carbohydrates slowly as being digested, therefore maintains a more steady blood glucose level

Colitis: fibre changes (normalizes) the time it takes for the food to pass the intestines, in colitis it usually means slower transit, more time for absorption of nutrients and water =less diarrhoea.

Constipation: again, normalizing transit time, in constipation it means faster transit and fibre also retains some water=softer faeces

- L-carnitine supplemented, which is a factor that increases the conversion of fat to energy, helping to reduce lipid levels and maintain a lean body mass

- Reduced magnesium, phosphorus, protein. These are the elemental particles of struvite. (protein providing the ammonium for the crystals)

-Urine acidifiers to help the prevention of struvite stone formation.

Please note that this diet is NOT suitable for puppies, pregnant or lactating bitches or weak, underweight dogs due to the reduced calorie and fat.

2009-09-25T15:35:00.001+01:00

Hill's Prescription Diet d/d

Welcome back to this blog. Not wasting the time, let's start to explain the use and benefits of the d/d diet.

Hill's d/d food is designed for animals suffering from diet sensitivity or food related allergy.

The most common reason of food intolerance is the sensitivity to one or more types of protein or carbohydrate in the meal. eg your dog can have intolerance for chicken or pork, etc. Most commercial diets contain a mixture of protein sources, therefore it is difficult to make sure your animal is not getting one or another.

The formulation of this food means that the manufacturer used only ONE type of protein in the diet (either duck or lamb, etc) , these being less common in other foods, meaning that your dog or cat has had less chance to eat these before, developing allergy to them.

They are using ONE carbohydrate source as well (some animals can be sensitive to certan carbohydrates), using either rice or potato in a given diet (not both).

There is one more special addition to the mix, which is a chicken protein covering to make the bits more tasty.

You might say: so there IS another protein source then!

The answer is yes and no. This fraction of ingredient has been treated, so the body won't recognise it as chicken. The long protein chains that cause the sensitivity, allergy in the body, have been cut up into small fractions, so they will pass the defences unrecognised.

Theoretically if you only suppled short protein chains or individual amino acids (basic bricks of proteins) in a diet, the risk of sensitivity would be minimal, but the taste would be non existent!

Therefore the formulation of d/d food is such that by providing new types of protein of a single source it minimizes the chance of developing allergic reacions in the body.

2009-09-16T15:10:00.000+01:00

About Hill's Prescription Diet i/d food

To link up the topic of this article a bit to the first one, I start the series about Hill's Prescription Diets with i/d.

i/d is Hill's product for various gastrointestinal disorders (gastro: stomach, intestine:bowels).

It's benefits are as follow:

Helps patients with vomiting. Due to controlled fibre levels, it has a gentle texture (especially the wet food suitable here) and also a low to moderate level of fat, helping the stomach to pass the meal effortlessly.

Supports animals with diarrhoea. The food contains a highly fermentable fibre source (beet pulp), providing appropriate amount of fibre for healthy digestion but not overloading the intestines. Also contains selected carbohydrates source to provide easily available energy without encouraging the growth of inappropriate bacteria.

Helps to maintain good health and speeds up recovery by providing increased levels of sodium, potassium (these depleting quickly due to vomiting and diarrhoea) and B vitamins (essential for recovery and healthy liver function).

Also has very high digestibility providing nutrients to the body readily available.

Finally contains a mixture of anti-oxidants (vitamin E, C, Selenium, beta-carotene) that are supplementing the immunosystem and slowing down oxidative processes (oxidation of enzymes and other molecules in the body results in their destruction or renders them useless).

Most common uses/diseases when i/d could be beneficial:

Recovery from surgery and various acute illnesses- provides easily accessible nutrients for the body for recovery

Vomiting and diarrhoea of various reasons- see above, gentle on stomach and intestines, easy to digest

Various bowel diseases, eg irritable bowel, certain food intolerances, chronic enteritis, etc- easy absorption of nutrients, vitamin support.

Next time I will continue the series with another diet relating to digestive disorders- d/d .

Istvan Makaresz DrMedVet, MRCVS

www.PetDorado.co.uk

New Hill's i/d food launching

2009-09-16T15:01:00.001+01:00

Hill's is launching their re-formulated i/d diets next month.

They had changed their wet i/d food's taste,texture and appearance to be even more appetising than before.

They also changed the i/d dry food's taste. According to their study, 71% of dogs preferred the new taste to the old one.

Both foods will come in improved packaging as well.

The new products are likely to reach customers mid-october, 2009.

To help to understand Hill's Prescription Diet products better, I am starting a series of articles here to try to give information on individual products, how they work and what conditions would benefit from the use of these foods.