New research has found that puppies that are fed a diet of dog food exclusively are more prone to developing issues with their gastrointestinal health as they age compared to those that are given leftovers or raw meat.
Professor Anna Hielm-Björkman and her colleagues from the University of Helsinki surveyed over 7000 dog owners in Finland about their dog’s diet between 2009 and 2019.
They wanted to find out if a dog’s diet at an early age had an effect on their gut health when they grew older.
Does a puppy’s diet have an effect on their gut health when they get older?
Which Is Better? Wet Or Dry Dog Food?
Find Out: Is This A Dog’s Superfood?
According to Hielm-Björkman, a dog’s diet can be split into three different categories. They are dog food, their owners’ cooked leftovers, and non-processed food such as fruits, fish, and raw meat.
The researchers found that a puppy’s diet (between the ages of two months and six months) had a strong correlation whether the pup developed chronic enteropathy, or gastrointestinal problems, later in life.
Dogs who were fed mostly dog food were 29 percent more likely to develop the condition compared to the dogs that ate mostly non-processed foods. However, this study wasn’t able to establish whether the dogs’ diet when they were younger was the only factor for the higher rate of illness.
Giving your dog raw foods, such as blueberries, when they are young, is linked with a lower chance of gut health problems later on in their life.
Dog Food Of The Future? Why You Should Switch Your Dog’s Diet To Include Lab-Grown Meat
Are You Watching What They Eat? Why You Might Be Overfeeding Your Dogs
So Why Does Dog Food Lead To A Higher Chance Of Gut Health Problems?
Interestingly enough, the researchers are unclear why dog food would lead to a higher chance of gut health problems.
“Dog food consists mainly of carbohydrates,” Professor Hielm-Björkman says. “It might have the same effect that sugar has on humans: causing low-grade inflammation.”
“Most dog owners are told that dog food constitutes a balanced diet. However, when you start including other foods in a dog’s diet, you can see a lot of diseases disappear.”
“It could be that a dog’s microbiomes are simply better at digesting non-processed foods,” she says.
Therefore, Professor Hielm-Björkman is advising owners to increase the variety in their dog’s diet, consisting of at least 20% of raw food.
You can read the original study here.
