The big thing in the news lately is that some of the grain free diets on the market have been associated with Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM) secondary to a low taurine level. There has been and continues to be a lot of research on this association, as we don’t know all of the finer points.

There is a great article written by a respected cardiologist on the subject here.

The take home points are:

  1. The associated diets all have legumes (lentils, peas, and/or chickpeas) as the main carbohydrate source.
  2. The FDA article lists a number of brands of food that have been named in reported DCM. Only one or a few of the diets per brand may have been named.
  3. This appears to be a issue for dogs only at this point.
  4. None of the major pet food companies’ (Hills, Purina, Royal Canin) foods have been implicated in these issues.

So, what should you do? I have many patients who have been eating some of the named diets. As of yet, I haven’t had any show signs of DCM. But will they develop DCM? I don’t know. And DCM is a really serious disease.

In my mind, if I had a pet on one of these diets and there wasn’t a reason to keep them on it (like food allergy), I would just switch to a maintenance made by Hills, Purina, or Royal Canin. There are prescription diets made by the major food companies for medical conditions, including allergies. If it is doable budget wise, it is probably safest to transition to a diet made by one of the major food companies. If your pet is doing well on one of the over the counter grain free diets, and it is not doable for budget or other reasons, I would definitely change to a diet that does not contain legumes. If, for some reason, it is not possible to change from a legume containing diet, then talk to your vet about testing taurine levels and/or doing an ultrasound to check for signs of DCM.

One more link I’d like to share is one about selecting pet foods. It also explains how to read and understand the verbage on a pet food label (it’s harder than you might think).