Renal Failure

[Guest hushpuppi]

Just wondering how many ex racer's retired grey's suffer with CRF chronic renal failure ......

Racer's are fed a high protien red meat diet during their career , I was wondering how this would effect them later on ???? is there a higher amount of CRF in greyhounds ?????????

 

Cheers

Jenni

Australia

[Burpdog]

No more so than other breeds. Many are misdiagnosed with kidney issues. They do tend to run higher creatine and a little higher BUN.

[Guest rumblephish]

I'm not aware of this being a breed issue as such. One the causes of crossing rainbow bridge in ALL breeds is liver and kidney issues and the secondery conditions. The other thing to keep in mind is that the vast majority of greys don't spend that much time as racers - 2 years and then they are retired.

 

A related issue is bad teeth. Since as racers their teeth are pretty much ignored a successful racer who comes off the track / breeding circuit at say five probably has awful teeth. If they are not given some serious care after that it can indeed lead to kidney issues due to bacteria entering the bloodstream via the gums. I've seen greys at 2 yrs old with pretty bad teeth so I would worry about the health issues.

 

Having said all that I have a 13 yrs old female who easily raced for five years, has terrible teeth, but only has minor kidney issues (I'd be shocked if she didn't).

 

The short answer to your question is that all dogs have a certain predisposition to kidney issues but in my experience I have not seen or read about a statistically significant increase in the likelyhood of renal issues with greyhounds.

 

Mike

 

Just wondering how many ex racer's retired grey's suffer with CRF chronic renal failure ......

Racer's are fed a high protien red meat diet during their career , I was wondering how this would effect them later on ???? is there a higher amount of CRF in greyhounds ?????????

 

Cheers

Jenni

Australia

 

[Cynthia]

High protein diets don't cause kidney failure. Low protein diets don't protect against kidney failure.

 

For lots of aritcles on this subject go to Dogaware.Com.

[Guest Ola]

Also, many dogs (of all breeds) eat a raw diet composed (entirely or in large part) of meat, bones and organs. They aren't any more prone to kidney disease that I know of.

[Guest rumblephish]

High protein diets don't cause kidney failure.

 

I know some Registered Dietians who might debate that statement.

 

That was why so many in the health field were so against the Atkins diet in humans. Lots of protien working the kidneys very hard for a long period of time and no long term clinical studies.

 

Having said all that, and in answer to the original post, I would stand by my first post that I do not believe from my experinece that this would be an issue for greys.

 

Mike

 

[Cynthia]

High protein diets don't cause kidney failure.

 

I know some Registered Dietians who might debate that statement.

 

 

 

And I'm sure I would agree with them if we were discussing human nutrition. Human and canine dietary needs are very different.

Edited December 21, 2007 by Cynthia

[Guest rumblephish]

Human and canine dietary needs are very different.

 

Agreed, but kidneys are still kidneys and protein is still protein.

 

Mike

[Guest hushpuppi]

having lost a girl to CRF that came from out of the blue at a very young age 6 years old ...I have read study and spoke to health dieticians, vets etc AND protein indeed can cause kidney damage even renal failure red meats are very high in phosphorus as are hearts, livers etc I never knew just how delicate a balance there must be for the poor old kidneys to function even though they will function with only 25% working ..once you go below that welllll.... I never want to go through that again ...... their diets now are strictly watched they still get red meat but only every second day and it's a lamb meat...fresh raw chicken is the base for their meat with veg, pasta eggs fish etc ..So I'm paranoid about the diets for the race dogs plus my belgians it was my Belgian girl Penny pup who I lost

you know the funny thing is though she never had a sick day in her life and all the dogs have always been fed natural well balanced diet ...

Edited December 21, 2007 by hushpuppi

[feemandvm]

Here was some information presented at a internal medicine CE conference regarding protein and kidney disease:

 

PROTEIN

 

There is agreement among veterinary nephrologists that protein restriction is warranted in dogs and cats with signs of uremia, based on clinical observations which indicate that some of these signs are alleviated. The ideal diet for imposing the restriction should minimize generation of nitrogenous wastes while providing a quantity and quality of protein that avoids protein malnutrition. Published reports which compare commercially available renal diets for relative success in approaching this ideal could not be found. The level of azotemia warranting protein restriction seems to be a matter of opinion. Many veterinary nephrologists advocate protein restriction in cases of CRD when BUN values exceed 75 mg/dl.

 

Although protein restriction seems to relieve signs of uremia, this effect involves extrarenal factors. A separate issue is whether dietary protein causes kidney damage. Although compelling evidence has accumulated indicating that high protein diets cause kidney damage in rats, such is not the case in dogs and cats. In the remnant kidney model of renal failure, dogs fed a high protein diet for 2 years had no higher mortality than dogs fed a low protein diet. 1 In old uninephrectomized dogs fed either a high protein or low protein diet for 4 years, mortality was slightly higher in dogs fed the low protein diet, and kidney lesions were not different between groups.2 In remnant kidney cats in which caloric intake was controlled, no adverse effects on kidney function or morphology were detected on cats on a high protein diet, compared to a low protein diet.3 Reports of controlled studies investigating the effects of protein intake on naturally-occurring CRD in dogs or cats could not be found.

 

 

Here is a journal article discussing this issue in humans:

 

Dietary protein intake and kidney disease in Western diet

Contrib Nephrol. 2007;155(0):102-12. 41 Refs

Roberto Pecoits-Filho1

1 Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná, Curitiba, Brazil. r.pecoits@pucpr.br

 

Abstract

Components of the diet related to changes in eating habits that characterize the modern Western world are important factors in the increasingly high prevalence of chronic disease, including obesity, diabetes, hypertension and as a consequence, chronic kidney disease. The healthy diets recommended for the general population to promote longevity (such as the Mediterranean diet), are defined based on epidemiological and intervention studies and are usually characterized by a relatively higher amount of protein than the usual Western diet. Unfortunately, very few clinical studies focused on diet-based strategies of prevention of kidney disorders. Furthermore, this review will propose that the concept that protein restricted diets decrease the risk of developing kidney disease in the general population is not supported by the scientific literature. Indeed, preliminary studies showing a positive effect of relatively high protein diets on risk factors for chronic kidney disease (particularly on obesity, hypertension and diabetes) point to the need for future studies addressing diets that could prevent the increasingly high prevalence of kidney disease in the Western world. On the other hand, there is a potential role for protein restriction in patients with established kidney disease, particularly in patients with significant decrease in glomerular filtration rate. The exact protective action of protein restriction in patients with established renal disease needs further analysis, taking into account the more broad effects of protein restriction (lower phosphate, acidosis, uric acid) and a more current definition of malnutrition.