Proper Nutrition and Lifestyle Essential for Cats

Cats have lived on the outer edges of human society for many thousands of years. However, domestication has changed cats relatively little. Diet options for cats in the wild have included consumption of small mammals, birds, and insects. These are meat or protein-based diets that contain little carbohydrate.

Cats, as a species, are strictly carnivorous. In many societies, they have been removed from their former free-roaming, active existence to a captive, indoor, sedentary one. They have also gone from consuming frequent, small meals of animals they could catch and kill to consuming prepared diets of human choosing.

Proper nutrition plays a key role in the prevention and management of many common feline endocrine disorders, including obesity, diabetes mellitus, and hyperthyroidism.

For more information, see this interesting blog post published last week in Cat Health News from the Winn Feline Foundation entitled, Cats: nutrition and lifestyle choices.

Related articles: 

• Zoran DL and Buffington CAT. Effects of nutrition choices and lifestyle changes on the well-being of cats, a carnivore that has moved indoors. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 2011; 239: 596-606. 
• Zoran D. The carnivore connection to nutrition in cats. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 2002; 221: 1559-67.