Comparison of three commercially available prescription diet regimens on short-term post-prandial serum glucose and insulin concentrations in healthy cats

Abstract

Dietary therapy is an important treatment component for diabetes mellitus (DM). In this study, the impact of three different commercially available diet regiments (1 general use and 2 aimed for treating obesity and DM) on short-term post-prandial serum glucose and insulin concentrations of five healthy cats to better understand what impact each of these diets may have for diabetic cats. The diet regiments used in this study were as follows: C/D dry (General Use- Low protein, High fat, High carbohydrate, and Low fiber), M/D dry (DM- High protein, High fat, Low carbohydrate, and High Fiber), and W/D dry (DM- Low Protein, Low Fat, High Carbohydrate, and High Fiber). No significant difference in post-prandial serum glucose levels were observed with the C/D (84.6 +/- 1.5 mg/dl) and W/D (83.8 +/- 1.4 mg/dl) dry diets when compared to pre-prandial fasting levels (83.9 +/- 1.4 mg/dl). However, a significant reduction was observed with the M/D diet (78.9 +/- 0.8 mg/dl) which had 50-60% less carbohydrates than either C/D or W/D diet. Unlike what was observed with post-prandial glucose levels, an interesting pattern emerged with post-prandial insulin levels, which were increasing with W/D, C/D, and M/D diets in that order (1.1 +/- 0.2, 1.7 +/- 0.2, and 2.3 +/- 0.2 ng/ml respectively). Most surprising, though, was the fact that the W/D diet did not seem to stimulate insulin secretion as compared to pre-prandial levels (1.1 +/- 0.1 ng/ml) in healthy cats. Interestingly, the W/D diet had high levels of carbohydrate and low levels of protein. Coincidentally, the only diet (M/D) which had a significant reduction in post-prandial glucose also showed the highest increase in post-prandial insulin in healthy cats. Therefore, dietary amounts of carbohydrate, fat, protein and fiber can all have an individual impact on post-prandial glycemia and subsequent insulin requirement levels. Just as concepts regarding dietary management of people with DM are evolving, investigators are reassessing what constitutes the ideal diet for the diabetic feline. As such, having a better understanding for each dietary component, may lead us to better understand how we can synergize certain dietary components to aid in DM management.

Effect of Dietary Carbohydrate, Fat, and Protein on Postprandial Glycemia and Energy Intake in Cats

“…The lower blood glucose concentrations in our cats fed the lower carbohydrate diets is consistent with previous findings, however, others have not reported differences, largely because of the methodology used, or the difference in carbohydrate content was not as great . It was not surprising that we found no differences in glucose tolerance test results between the diets, because the glucose tolerance test is performed after a 24‐hour fast, and the glucose load is the same for all cats.…”

Impact of Commercially Available Diabetic Prescription Diets on Short-Term Postprandial Serum Glucose, Insulin, Triglyceride and Free Fatty Acid Concentrations of Obese Cats

“…Our results corroborate a previous study reporting that healthy cats fed a diet for 4 weeks with approximately 50% of energy from carbohydrates, demonstrated a significantly higher mean glucose concentration and glucose AUC as compared with cats fed diets with 25% of energy from carbohydrates [11]. Interestingly, the M/D and Diabetic diets also resulted in a postprandial glucose level lower than the preprandial level, in which is consistent with our results from a previous study where healthy cats were used [28].…”

“…However, information on the effects of the use of commercially available prescription diets to manage feline obesity is scarce and thus far includes only two studies that have investigated the effects of these diets on glucose and insulin concentrations in cats [8,26]. Furthermore, our previous study demonstrated that commercially available diabetic prescription diets affect postprandial glucose and insulin concentrations in nonobese healthy cats [28]; however, no study has investigated the effects in obese cats.…”

Age and body weight effects on glucose and insulin tolerance in colony cats maintained since weaning on high dietary carbohydrate

“…However, such hyperglycaemia has the same effect on some omnivore species (Imamura et al., 1988), and the level of starch present in extruded dry‐type diets does not consistently produce an extraordinary hyperglycaemia in cats compared to other species (Kienzle, 2004; de‐Oliveira et al., 2008). Also, the plasma insulin response in cats to ‘high’ dietary carbohydrate is not consistently found to be greater than the response to a ‘high’ dietary protein (Rand et al., 2003; Mori et al., 2009).…”