Comparison of High Fiber and Low Carbohydrate Diets on Owner-Perceived Satiety of Cats During Weight Loss
- 1 University of Tennessee, United States
Abstract
Food-seeking behaviors exhibited by cats during weight loss programs are frustrating to owners. Two categories of therapeutic weight loss diets are available for cats: High Fiber (HF) and Low Carbohydrate (LC). The objective of this study was to determine if cat owners perceive a difference in satiety when their cats are fed either a HF or LC diet during a weight loss regimen. Twenty-eight client-owned cats were randomly assigned to either an HF or LC canned diet and fed to 80% of their ideal weight resting energy requirements. Cats were rechecked at 2, 4, 6 and 8 weeks and food intake adjusted to maintain weight loss between 0.5-1% per week. Seventeen cats completed the 8-week weight loss study (HF = 10, LC = 7). Owners completed behavior questionnaires at each visit and were blinded to food assignments. The two diet groups did not differ significantly by age, sex, body condition score, caloric intake, or rate of weight loss during the study. The two diets did not differ by owner response to questionnaire. In conclusion, owners perceived cats to be equally satiated during weight loss regimens on both the HF and LC diets.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3844/ajavsp.2012.218.225
Copyright: © 2012 Martha Cline, Angela Witzel, Tamberlyn Moyers, Joseph Bartges and Claudia Kirk. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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Keywords
- Satiety
- Low Carbohydrate
- High Fiber
- Weight Loss