by Robert Preidt
Health reporter
Free Diet Plan For Belly Fat Loss - The Purrfect Diet for Your Fat Cat
Sunday, (HealthDay News) - Does your favorite tabby get a tubby tubby?
You can help this fat cat safe. But be warned: This will not happen at night.
Researchers at the University of Illinois places eight castrated male cats with overweight on a diet for 18 weeks. They wanted cats to lose enough weight to be noticeable, but not enough to put their health at risk.
Kelly Swanson, Professor in the Department of Animal Sciences.
"It turns out that you have to continue reducing your food intake because they are not very active. It takes a long time, "he said at a university news launch.
The goal was to help cats pour 1.5% of body weight per week. Which is in accordance with the recommendations of American animal hospital Association.
Weight loss faster liver risks. "They can not handle it," Swanson said.
The researchers began by reducing the ingestion of cat foods by 20 percent and then continued to cut back every week - just as people can do to see continued results on the scale.
"When we go on a diet, we could lose a lot of weight in the first few weeks and then hit a block of road. Even with these animals," said Swanson.
"We had to keep down, but it can be difficult to convince an animal owner to do this. You can receive owners to reduce the ingestion of 60 to 50 grams per day, but we are saying they can have We go to 45 or 40 grams. We were very low, but we were monitoring them so they were healthy, "he explained.
How cats were lost, the researchers noticed that some types of bacteria in their bowels have become more abundant, while others have declined. These changes can be beneficial, but more research is needed, study authors said.
The Swanson's team also watched to see if the cats have become more active while they decreased."Your level of activity has not changed much," Swanson said. "Going to the end, they were becoming a bit more active, but not statistically."
Even so, he said that the owners should encourage their cats to get the most possible exercise while playing with them and putting food bowls more distant from their favorite rest points.
The study was published in the February issue of the American Veterinary Research Journal.
