
FDA names dog-food brands with potential link to canine heart disease - colinprince
https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/news-events/fda-investigation-potential-link-between-certain-diets-and-canine-dilated-cardiomyopathy
======
sergers
My purebreed english bulldog 9 years old ate zignature kangaroo for past 2
years

Zignature has the top most dcm cases from this report.

He was diagnosed with DCM 2 nights ago.

We had to put him down last night.

Not sure if there is a relation, we never got a chance to validate his taurine
levels but put him on taurine supplement, but there wasn't enough time to see
the effect as he got worse with breathing and bloating do to the DCM and
myocardial arithmia, was in severe cardiac arrest.

I read on the possible link and the vet mentioned it could be related
yesterday.

He was born with an enlarged heart, so dont know if that's related.

Who knows... we will miss him, I wish there was more we could have done.

Also want to point out we did do 50% BARF diet, my dog had alot of allergy and
supposedly did have gluten intolerance. Barf was not always feasible to give
being on the road alot, so we also fed him zignature.

Since he was on it, alot of his conditions cleared up and I would say he was
doing better overall health than on other brands (royal canine) till recently.

More work needs to be done before I would blame the brand.

~~~
ska
I'm saddened that you are going through this now, it is a hard time.

~~~
sergers
Thanks

------
ebg13
A very good friend of mine who is a laboratory veterinarian once told me that
the most important difference between niche brands like these and major
players like Purina is that Purina actually dedicates massive resources to
longitudinal testing of their products for things like all cause mortality,
and hippie brands can't or don't.

~~~
jliptzin
I also have a good friend who is a vet who laughs at people spending 5x as
much on hippie dog food brands that either don’t do anything good or make
things worse. He has had 4 dogs all live past 15 and only fed them the
cheapest big brand name pet foods.

~~~
Scoundreller
Sometimes it’s an enterprising vet at fault: oh, your pet has ______ and needs
a special diet containing _____, which we just happen to sell and you can’t
find at a big box store.

Now the vet has turned your pet into a recurring revenue source beyond labour-
intensive checkups.

It’s kinda like Luxxottica: a lot of their brands are only available through
brick and mortal clinics. You can’t buy them through an online provider
because they won’t sell to them.

~~~
ebg13
Every vet will tell you that Hill's Science Diet is an excellent brand that
they don't give to their own pets because it's too expensive.

~~~
dehrmann
The "prescription" version is even worse. You need a "prescription" from your
vet to buy it for authorized retailers, but it doesn't actually have any drugs
in it that are regulated in a way requiring a prescription. They've been sued
over this (but I think they won).

My vet told me to put my cat on it after he had stress-related urinary
problems. The problems went away, but the food is stupid-expensive, I'm a
little peeved at how the system is taking advantage of me, but I don't know
what to switch to other than starting to give my cat tryptophan.

~~~
krageon
Take your pet to a different veterinarian for a second opinion. There has to
be at least one that doesn't shill for corporate product and can give you
grounded, practical advice.

------
jmilloy
Better link, with links to more specific studies and updates (including the
June 2019 update): [https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/news-events/fda-
invest...](https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/news-events/fda-
investigation-potential-link-between-certain-diets-and-canine-dilated-
cardiomyopathy)

I guess it is good that they are being transparent with the data, but it is
largely useless at this point as it isn't normalized at all and is in a way
self-reported. You obviously can't conclude that chicken is bad and goat is
good, but you can't really conclude anything else either. One potential
mechanism is the taurine levels but the set of DCM cases contain low, normal,
and high levels of taurine at similar rates. I think they are doing a
reasonably good job, though. There are a number of controlled (though small
sample size) studies ongoing.

~~~
dang
OK, we've changed to that from [https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/dog-food-dcm-
fda-1.5199186](https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/dog-food-dcm-fda-1.5199186).
Thanks!

------
bitcurious
I wonder if this might’ve be explained by owner income, high income being
correlated with both grain free food and expensive pathology reports on dogs
that suddenly passed away.

~~~
sergers
Very possible

A dog can suddenly die from dcm, most dog owners dont perform an autopsy and
there isn't much post mortem services available altogether.

I had the chance to get it diagnosed, the work put into the initial analysis
ran up to nearly $5000(the treatment plan was for 10k, not including the
potential 6 medicines and weekly blood analysis/vet visits, ecg if he did make
it)

Not everyone has this option to afford it, nor does every pet have the time to
reach diagnosis based on their condition.

I have a friend who fed his dog the cheapest kibble from grocery store, the
dog suddenly passed. He seeked an autopsy, nothing much could be done post-
mortem. That was the end of it.

The dog could have had dcm, or something else, but not enough work done in
this field of dog cardiology. He definitely was not feeding it grain free
legumes diet food.

Zignature is one of the most expensive brands($110 a month worth of food i was
paying), I would think owners purchasing this would be enabled to also afford
expensive services to diagnose DCM more than others

~~~
masonic
s/autopsy/necropsy/g

------
eternalny1
This makes no sense ... first they say:

"Although the FDA first received a few sporadic reports of DCM as early as
2014, the vast majority of the reports were submitted after the agency
notified the public about the potential DCM/diet issue in July 2018."

Then at the end of the article ...

"Another puzzling aspect of the recent spike in DCM cases is that they have
occurred just in the last few years. "

It's not puzzling, it's because that's when the public was notified and more
people reported cases!

------
graeme
Did the FDA account for sales volumes? Their release only mentions frequency
of reports. It would be natural for more popular brands to show up more:
[https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-
issu...](https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-issues-third-
status-report-investigation-potential-connection-between-certain-diets-and-
cases)

------
TheSpiceIsLife
This is particularly interesting to me, as I became aware dogs can eat legumes
shortly after I got my two rescues.

Their typical died consists of a mixture of green or yellow split peas,
pressure cooked for 43 minutes, then blended to a medium-thickness liquid, and
cooked brown rice. This then gets mixed with raw mince (typically kangaroo or
chicken), and grated / finely chopped raw vegetables consisting of one or more
of the following: carrots, sweet potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage.
They also get raw meat bones (lamb, kangaroo, chicken), as well as raw eggs.
Oh yeah, they also low apples, particularly fujis, and berries. So the mixed
food I make often contains chopped apples or frozen mixed berries.

I generally never feed them the same ratio, or same things consistently. Some
weeks the mix I make them will have no peas, another week no rice, another
week no meat. They often skip meals, or have fast days where they get no food
only water and exercise, as I believe dogs are opportunistic scavengers well
suited to gorging and fasting.

I rarely feed them any off the shelf dog food.

I can see the difference when I feed them off the shelf food, as their poops
turn to, shall I say, shit. Whereas the mixture of cooked peas and rice, plus
raw veg and meat and bones, makes their poop easy to pass, and well formed.

With regards to dry dog food, canned dog food, and those dog-roll things...
Can you imagine eating nothing but dry dog food most your life? Or nothing but
canned food most of your life? Or nothing but luncheon meat / devon most your
life? Tell me that isn't going to have long term health consequences.

~~~
zemvpferreira
The problem being that this data points in the exact opposite direction:
animals developing fatal diseases after being fed more “natural” diets.

I used to be a proponent of raw diets for dogs, but I can’t pick a natural
fallacy over clinical reality. Poop quality being whatever it is.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
I disagree.

Have a look at the chart in the article (
[https://www.fda.gov/files/dog_food_formulations_in_dcm_repor...](https://www.fda.gov/files/dog_food_formulations_in_dcm_reports_to_fda.png)
) where it says _Review of the canine reports shows that most reports were for
dry dog food formulations, but raw food, semi-moist food, and wet foods were
also represented._

Edit to add: also, the 'more natural' diets indicated by the article are these
niche pet food formulations that _try_ to be more natural, but are just as
cooked / processed as any other similar type of pet food, and potentially
worse because, as others have pointed out, these niche brands lack the
longitudinal research capacity of the big brands. Whereas my formulation is,
as many have pointed out when they see what I'm making for my dogs, pretty
much exactly what I eat: fresh raw and cooked vegetables, meats, and beans. If
a fairly natural diet of raw and cooked foods kills me and my dogs, we're all
fucked and might as well give up now.

------
cinnamonheart
This has been frustrating to watch unfold. Of five major brands not implicated
-- Purina, Royal Canin, Hill’s Science Diet, Eukanuba, and Iam’s -- we've
tried four and they do not agree with my dog. The brands I have found that he
thrives on, Fromm and Taste of the Wild, are listed here as possibly being
linked to DCM (although he does well on non-grain-free Fromm). It has been a
struggle finding an ideal food not linked to DCM but also agreeable to my dog.

~~~
Shivetya
My anecdotal issue is I did use Taste of the Wild for a year or so before
switching to Victors but not long after my male dog developed all sorts of
issue, yet can I truly attribute them to the food or his age (14?).

However from the article I cannot figure out, how long after the diet was
changed before symptoms were noticed?

------
Zenst
I, and I'm sure many others was unaware that the FDA had anything to do with
pet food - pleasantly supprised and does make sense.

~~~
danso
Pet food recalls are issued through the FDA:
[https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-
safety...](https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-
alerts)

------
readhn
I never understood the whole "dry dog food diet" and expecting dogs to be
healthy long term. Imagine yourself eating dry crackers all your life. Its
sad.

Maybe its just me but dogs need to eat actual meat and bones and real veggies.
I grew up with our dog eating normal food: remains of the meats we ate, bones,
lightly cooked meat purchased separately, certain vegetables etc. etc.

One day, we did buy dry dog food for him. He came up, looked at it, turned
around and walked away. The next day we gave dry food away. We "spoiled" him
with good normal food.

People might say its expensive. But really, looking at the thousands and
thousands of dollars pet owners spend on their dogs already normal food
prepared smartly is not that expensive.

Honestly if you cant afford to feed your dog/cat properly maybe you should not
have a pet at all.

~~~
matwood
My wife makes our dogs food once/month. The cost comes out to about the same
as one of the expensive brands of kibble.

She does have to cook everything which takes a few hours though.

~~~
readhn
I mean duh you'd cook food for your child and not feed him/her crackers. The
same goes for dogs/cats. They are family members and deserve to eat god food
too.

------
escanda
I have been feeding my dog Taste of the Wild for three months until she
started vomiting. I took her to the vet and it seems it's because some food
allergy. At the moment she's taking Hill's I/D (the one with the darker pink
tone) and she's alright, she stopped vomiting and she's just okay.

I just talked to my vet and he's told me to give her Hill's I/D for one or two
months to dicard other causes.

From what I gather here from other comments it seems big brands have resources
other brands don't although the quality of the ingredients may be lower
although they are set in the right amount.

I won't ever feed again my dog other food than big brands you can find on your
vet. And of course I'll be feeding her food with grain.

------
cannonedhamster
This seems reckless to release names without a causal relationship defined.
The only thing they seem to be able to determine is that in some breeds, some
dog foods that are really common, might possibly be related to the disease.
That's kind of like saying that because nearly every human eats vegetables on
a regular basis, vegetables must cause cancer and heart disease since those
are the two major causes of deaths in humans. I've had numerous dogs on one of
the listed brands, not a single one has died of this disease.

~~~
AstralStorm
Unlike most people, dogs usually get fed majority of food from single sources.
Thus causality is relatively strong in comparison to other observational
studies.

~~~
trappist
It's not though. Establishing Brand X as a cause doesn't tell you what
ingredient, or what missing nutrient, or what other feature of that brand's
food is causing the problem. What value is there in that? You can switch
brands, but you have no way to know the new food isn't worse than the old
food. And if you're the producer, you have no knowledge of how to improve your
food - might as well just close up shop because ... the brand is the cause?

~~~
krageon
Gathering the data is a step in the right direction, and publishing it is the
only ethical thing to do.

------
tomohawk
We feed one of our dogs Blue Buffalo. He thrives on it after years of
methodically trying other brands. He's 13.

During our quest, we also found that the best supplement was fish oil
(pollock). Prior to the fish oil, he had all kinds of skin problems and
inflammation. The fish oil was beneficial and required regardless of dog food
brand we tried.

------
myth_buster
> It’s important to note that the FDA doesn’t yet know how certain diets may
> be associated with DCM in some dogs.

From my read, it's an ongoing research and no results/conclusions have been
reached yet. They are posting names of brands as an effort to "being
transparent with their investigation".

------
waffle_ss
Well this is upsetting. Our golden retriever died suddenly just shy of two
years of age (very young) several years ago. She was fed Fromm Family Gold
exclusively due to our breeder's recommendation. The food was expensive and I
remember thinking how well she must be eating as it had so many kinds of meats
and fat in it (including stuff like duck IIRC). Fromm is one of the brands
listed by the FDA and golden retrievers are clearly hardest hit by this.

We did have a necropsy performed however it was inconclusive. She got a ton of
exercise though as I took her to doggy daycare a majority of days during the
week and our kid at home played with her often. Really sad that we apparently
unknowingly did everything wrong (but with the best intentions) to ensure our
dog died an early death. Fuck.

~~~
ilikepi
I am very sorry for your loss. It always sad to deal with the death of a pet,
but it's especially hard when they're so young and it's so sudden.

I hope you will consider that this report is discussing early stages of
research, not conclusive findings. I don't think it's fair to beat yourself up
for "doing everything wrong" when there's still so much uncertainty.

------
xwdv
This is why I always advocate for people to look into a BARF diet for their
dogs, but too many people are squeamish about it. Some of the most powerful
and healthy dogs I’ve seen all eat BARF.

Some seem to go to great lengths to watch what they eat for their own bodies,
but never their dogs.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
As I had to Google it - apparently BARF is "Biologically Appropriate Raw
Food".

I have to say I get the concept. Dogs just didn't evolve to eat the weird hard
little grain-based pellets that a lot of people feed to them. Then again,
humans didn't evolve to eat a modern Western diet either. Considering the
number of fat and unhealthy dogs I see is starting to rival the number of fat
and unhealthy people, perhaps that tells us something.

~~~
eurg
Just as a short aside, IIRC there is evidence that because of the very long
association between humans and dogs, dogs actually _did_ evolve to make good
use of some of humans' throwaways, compared to their wild relatives.

I don't have a dog, so didn't save the link, but for dog caretakers some
literature review might do good (also, maybe consensus improved since then).

EDIT: obviously that doesn't necessarily translate to modern dry food.

~~~
mrob
Consider also that dogs have a shorter generation time than humans. Most dogs
have eaten a grain-based diet ever since their domestication, because it's
cheapest.

------
jayess
My dog's brand isn't listed, but it seems like pea protein is a common
denominator. My dog's "grain free" food has pea protein as one of its top
ingredients.

I just switched him back to regular wet dog food. I'm beginning to think organ
meat is necessary for canines. And reading through these comments has lead me
to start looking into a BARF diet.

Coincidentally I also noticed this article yesterday on allergic reactions in
humans to pea protein: [https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/food-allergy-pea-
protein-1.51...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/food-allergy-pea-
protein-1.5118978)

~~~
technothrasher
Just be sure you read decent, science based material on the BARF diet rather
than just anicdotal forum post and people pitching their 'alternative'
products. I've seen a very large cross section of pro-"raw food" and anti-vax
attitudes in pet owners. That should be a huge red flag. Not that raw food is
necessarily bad, but that the people pushing it are not often critical
thinkers.

[https://avmajournals.avma.org/doi/full/10.2460/javma.243.11....](https://avmajournals.avma.org/doi/full/10.2460/javma.243.11.1549)

~~~
jayess
Thanks for the info. I'm not sold on BARF, I'm just curious. I didn't know the
connection between that and anti-vaxx.

Interestingly, I'm not sure why my parent post got downvoted so badly.

------
ricelamb
I can't believe noone has mentioned Sportsman's Pride yet. Their lamb + rice
blend is the best thing ever for allergies and rashes and et cetera, and the
whole brand is very good. They also have cat food, but the point was that
their lamb+rice mix is really good for dog itches dog allergies et cetera.
Recommend it.

~~~
sustained19
This is the direct link to their Lamb Meal And Rice Formula dog food. Works
really great for itches allergies and et cetera:
[https://www.sportsmanspride.com/lamb-meal-rice-formula-
dog-f...](https://www.sportsmanspride.com/lamb-meal-rice-formula-dog-food)

------
miles_matthias
We took some time to learn the history of dry dog food and what modern
companies have been doing, and recently switched our dog over to a wet food
that gets shipped to our house every 2 weeks. It's been a great move, she
loves it. And we feel better about giving her less processed food.

~~~
skeptical9000
Please elaborate, maybe with wet food brand. Sincerely, concerned owner.

~~~
sydd
look up BARF food, it's the best for the dog IMO, barely processed. we buy it
in deep frozen big packs (essentialy frozen whole meat, not just some meat
pasta) 1-2 times a month. The brand is Graf Barf, dunno if it's in the US.

~~~
maccard
Given the topic is an FDA recall of a trendy diet which sounds better (grain
free, high meat protein content), are there any studies which look at a BARF
diet? I'm a dog owner cnsidering what to feed my pup, and right now I'm
leaning towards sticking to Royal Canin based on the information available to
us.

~~~
invokestatic
While I can’t speak to your question, I spoke to my mom (veterinarian) about
this after reading this thread and asked her specifically about BARF. She said
that in most patients she’s seen on those diets, their bloodwork has been all
over the place. She said it’s because when dogs ate meat in the wild, they
were actually indirectly eating an omnivore diet, because their prey had
plants and grains in their guts. Additionally, she’s noticed some really nasty
and hard to detect parasites which she suspects originates from these types of
diets. Of course, this is anecdotal. She recommends a name-brand dog food
because they’re all well-tested, and says to not worry about feeding meat to
your dogs because they can produce the necessary amino acids themselves.

Consult your veterinarian for dietary advice for your specific animal. You
should trust their level-headed advice over emotionally-driven decisions from
owners.

It’s refreshing to see a skeptical comment like yours, and I too find it
interesting a lot of people reporting jumping ship from one trendy diet to
another.

~~~
sydd
Actually with BARF you should give also some vegetables to your dog. And good
BARF food has the same things as you mentioned e.g. cow stomach with greens
inside it (dunno it's English name) As for worms..you should always give your
dog anti worm pills, he/she is always up to no good, e.g. drinking from
puddles. Also buy quality barf food.

~~~
krageon
The person you are responding to is talking about hard to detect parasites,
not just worms. Given that they are hard to detect, I don't think it is
reasonable to assume that buying "quality barf food" will solve this issue.

------
Justsignedup
Even the FDA notes, there's no definitive evidence, more studies needed.

This is one of those "EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE maybe possibly". A bad report.
This will turn people off from listening to the FDA. I would have expected
more research before releasing.

------
Paul-ish
This sounds like it has potential for a class action.

------
rietta
Oh no! My golden retriever mix is eating an Acana grain free dry food. Going
to have to find something else.

------
nyjah
Jesus, thats like every dog food brand.

~~~
heartbreak
Absent of the major brands like Hill’s and Purina?

------
otherme123
This is "investigation conclusions done wrong", specifically a case of
"correlation doesn't imply causation" and "normalize your data" working at
full speed. Heck, it seems to me they are just publishing the data collected
along with a 10 minutes "analysis": lets aggregate this, average that, some
bar plots and ready to go online. And to add salt to the injury, they publish
brand names.

This is the way "vaccines causes autism" nonsense reach the public and stay
there forever. Even if a retraction, correction or refine of the conclusions
is published in 6 months it will never have the impact of this release, and
many will think "they are paid by the affected brands to say that".

~~~
gilrain
Not a good analogy. "Vaccines cause autism" reached the public via a doctor
straight-up lying and falsifying data so that he could profit on a new vaccine
he hoped would replace the old one. Just another grifting charlatan, albeit
one who is now responsible for inestimable damage to humanity.

