New Skills

[Montgomery]

I hope so. One thing is sure, though: we're doing it wrong, with ourselves and our furballs. You know, I'm part of a WWII rationing group and everyone on that group gets healthier because all the processed junk disappears from our diets. Says a lot, doesn't it?

[Olesia711]

oh gosh, YES...i can certainly believe that! A lot sure can be said for eating healthy and avoiding processed foods and foods with a high amount of preservatives to give the item a long shelf life..........

[Greyden]

What great information! Thank you for sharing these stories.

Have there been any studies regarding diet as a possible cause of EPI? I am curious because it was unique to only a few breeds and is now endemic in the population - was it just lack of awareness in other breeds or has something more universal changed?

[Eddiespaghetti]

I think some or all of it is better awareness. I think we have EPI4DOGS foundation to thank for that.
When Eddie started to have problems, most of the vets didn't think other breeds got EPI. It was because of this website I even thought to do a cTLI. Without it, we would probably still be doing the metro cycle. While Eddie slowly wasted away. Better knowledge that every breed and at every age can develop EPI also helps. I take Eddie to 4 different vets depending on what needs to be done and 2 of them don't fully understand EPI and give outdated information.
Speaking of cTLI, once this test was more prevalent, I am sure the number of cases of EPI went up. The older fecal tests were not super accurate for EPI.
I think diet could be a factor, at least in a second or third degree. Sometimes chronic pancreatitis cause lead to EPI. Diet can be a huge factor in pancreatitis. At the same time, can a 5 month puppy really have enough food for their to be a factor?
All this rambling aside, I have never been one to worry about why something happened. I am only focused on how to fix/treat it.

[Olesia711]

Hi Greyden,

thanks for asking the question.... "Have there been any studies regarding diet as a possible cause of EPI? " as far as i know, the answer is "no".
But my understanding is because to frame such a study it would be extremely difficult, not to mention expensive.

And yes, Jeremy is correct in the fact that better EPI awareness probably does account for more dogs being properly diagnosed with EPI.

ALmost 20 years ago, when my Izzy, a Spanish Water Dog (SWD) was the first SWD to ever be diagnosed with EPI.... i remember my vet wanting to test her for EPI since she had all the EPI symptoms even though he said EPI is a GSD condition!
Back then when we spoke to the researchers they said at meetings no one or just 1 vet at a table of 10 had an EPI case. Nowadays, the researchers said that most will raise their hands that they have had a case!
SO yes, i DO think awareness is a big part of more cases being confirmed.....

but WHY???

Claud Bernard back in 1856 did an experiment with dogs "In his monograph on pancreatic secretion, Bernard’
made clinical pathophysiological correlations of patients reported in the literature with the observations
he made in dogs after destroying the pancreas. One dog of 7 survived more than 2 days after a variety of
substances had been injected into the pancreatic duct. Mutton fat had been injected into the duct of the surviving dog. After recovering from the operation, the dog was voracious and passed undigested food (tripe)
in pale, claylike, greasy, and foul-smelling stools. When the dog was killed 24 days later, its pancreas was
found to be partially atrophied and destroyed. Bernard noted that the stools of this dog were very
similar to the stools of 8 patients reported in the literature who had abnormal pancreases at autopsy. "

THis was the earliest historical documentation of EPI in an experiment done on dogs to identify what was going on in people........... BUT in the 1950's we started seeing EPI pop up in dogs!

And guess what also began in the 1950's....."The process known as extrusion or kibbling was developed by 1956, and it is the same process used today to make dry dog food".

SOoooo... does this have ANY thing to do with EPI or other health conditions??? I have no idea, but i too wonder, if the high heat processing of dog food???... if all the preservatives that are added to our food and our dog's food has this contributed to many immune health conditions??? has the fact that over time, from soil treatment, pesticides, we have stripped our soils of so many nutrients and now have to add chemicals back to the soil.... is this part of the problem? ???

i honestly have no idea..... but i do wonder............

[Eddiespaghetti]

I am only playing devil's advocate here.
In the early 1900s less then 20 percent of dogs lived past 6 years old.
In the mid 1900s less then 20 percent of dogs lived past 10 years old.
In some places of the world, life expectancy of dogs have gone up 230 percent since the mid 1900s.
Does the kibbling process make food better for the dogs? Does it make it more affordable? The fact there are less working animals, but more pets? Advances in veterinary medicine? All of these reasons and more?
Who knows...

[Olesia711]

Hi Jeremy (a.k.a. devils advocate )

I hear ya.... so now this makes me wonder are the exploding percentages of health issues in-line percentage-wise with longer lives???? i honestly don't know.... As i have recently read that some breeds are now not living as long as they did in the recent past..... but who knows....... if this is true or not.

I personally LOVE science and research and so many of us AND our animals would not be here today if it wasn't for medical advances.... but as more time goes on, the more i think that sometimes advances have two-sides to the coin.............. and to dig deeper into whatever i am told.

What i am trying to do lately is scrutinize who did the study, how the study was done, conflict of interest, and who, if any corporate funding was involved... and.... scrutinize the benchmarks used in a study which can be a minefield! but in the end, IMHO....the ONLY way to stay on top of things is to read as much as we can, try to learn as much as we can, share with each other what we learn, exchange ideas and hopefully someday the right answers will evolve .

[Eddiespaghetti]

It could also be the longer life of pets means more diseases. There was a article a few years back based on a study. It said everyone with a prostate will get prostate cancer, if they live long. I obviously paraphrased it into a sentence, instead of a whole article.
I have to assume that some breeds aren't living as long due to in-breeding, puppy mills, and subsequent abandonment. I also want to take an educated guess that some TV shows have lead to owners making terrible choices (looking at you "dog whisperer"). Different rant though.
It is tough to be critical of research. One, they are usually a lot of data. 2, our brains are wired for patterns. Once we have a pattern it's incredibly hard to change our minds on it. H. Confirmation Bias is running rampant these days.

[Montgomery]

I've heard it said, too, that any cat living long enough will wind up with kidney disease. In my experience, it seems to be true.
Montgomery saw four different veterinarians before he met the one who finally dignosed him. The first two were young veterinarians, the second two had been practising for decades. One of these two men was an old country veterinarian. The only things that ever came up were IBD and allergies. When his current (conventional) veterinarian saw him for the first time, she watched him walk around the room and said EPI. Was he not considered because he's of the feline persuasion? Certainly Dr. Lindsay and Dr. Predergast had seen EPI in their long careers, but the younger doctors, do they not learn about this anymore?
As for diet, certainly the cleaner we all eat, the better off we should be, yet enough cats have lived into their twenties on Cat Chow and Friskies. Montgomery, since his epic hairball, has refused his proper food, and I've noticed some gurgling sounds eminating from his sleepy cube because he's been eating cat food. We are currently having a battle of the wills with regards to diet. He's better on the food I make for him; he thinks the tinned food tastes better. Ouch. His buddy, Felix, lived into his twenties. He ate everything that didn't eat him first, and his favourite thing was to get a chunk of vegan brioche bun. I don't think I ever even heard that cat burp. Good genes. Montgomery, not so much.
Reading this forum, it seems to me that we are a good test of what will work for our EPI-afflicted family members. I see a lot of the same brands mentioned over and over again when I read it, and if you took a poll and asked everyone on here who they were feeding (micro lion or house wolf?) and what and when and how, you'd come up with a pattern.

[Olesia711]

V... you made me laugh.... and yes i DO think genes has a lot to do with much of it.....

but over 15 years, we have seen patterns emerge with these EPI pets... but the difficult thing is when we "suggest" certain brands and then they change the formula or if there is a recall, or of it is discontinued.... it gets very frustrating.... so the best thing for us to do is suggest a criteria of what type of food "appear" to work best.... and then mention what currently seems to work, but offer no guarantees..............