Nutrition and Dermatology
It is important to reiterate the first words on my Home page – the treatment and management of the pets under my care, as a consultant dermatologist, will be pro-active, evidence-based whenever possible, tailored for each individual, fully explained and independent. Nutrition plays an important part in the investigation, treatment and long term management of the vast majority of my case load. I will always give the owner a list of recommended diets for their pet during my consultations and please remember I receive no re-numeration from the companies whose diets I recommend.
There is well-established scientific evidence of what comprises a balanced and suitable diet for growing youngsters, healthy adults as well as elderly and/or unwell dogs & cats. Unfortunately there is also an ever more expanding choice of diet fads – home-made (home-prepared maintenance diets, HPMDs), raw (raw meat-based diets, RMBDs), grain-free etc – that have little or no scientific nor veterinary support. These can be, at best, unbalanced and, at worst, harmful or detrimental to the health of the pets (and sometimes their human carers too).
As a veterinary dermatologist, my case load is strongly biased toward hypersensitive (allergic) patients so I will concentrate these page on the long term management of Atopic dermatitis (aeroallergen allergy) and the investigation of dietary intolerances.
But nutrition plays an important role in many other dermatological conditions – from treatment of true or relative deficiencies right through to true medical therapy – hence I will give nutritional advice for most of my cases even when this may only be a minor consideration within the management and treatment of their specific condition.
Other Information Sources:
- The Pet Food Manufacturers Association fact sheets: http://www.pfma.org.uk/fact-sheets
- The WSAVA guides to finding good nutritional resources for dogs: https://www.wsava.org/sites/default/files/Nutrition%20on%20the%20Internet%20dogs.pdfand cats: https://www.wsava.org/sites/default/files/nutrition%20on%20the%20internet%20cats.pdf
- Wilson SA et al (2019). Evaluation of the nutritional adequacy of recipes for home-prepared maintenance diets for cats, Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 254(10): 1,172-1,179. https://doi.org/10.2460/javma.254.10.1172
Conclusions & Clinical Revelance: problems with nutritional adequacy were identified in all evaluated HPMD recipes. Appropriate formulation of HPMDs requires specialized knowledge of nutrition and use of computer software to avoid potentially harmful nutrient deficiencies.