[ladyjane]

Originally Posted by Ellie May

I don't use enzymes unless EPI is suspected (in which case they are a trusted veterinary product).

Taken from petdiets.com:
My lab has been on the Pat Mckay.com program makes a big deal about the fact that all enzymes are killed in processed food and that the dog needs enzymes. How do your address that point?
Someone is attempting to rewrite a basic physiology! This is so wrong on many points.



1) The normal dog pancreas has been measured to produce something on the order of 70X the amount of protein and fat enzymes needed to digest a meal. The enzymes used to digest carbohydrates are actually sitting in the small intestinal mucosa, which in total has a surface area about the size of a football field. Evidence that most commercial dog foods without enzyme addition have an overall digestibility of 85-90% attests to their endogenous enzyme production. I think not producing feces is a bad idea, and that this level of digestibility is about right.



2) There is only one medical situation whereby additional enzymes are need and the condition is called Pancreatic Enzymes Insufficiency (PEI). Pancreatic function in this regard can be easily evaluated by a simple, single fasted blood test called a TLI. If your dog is documented to have PEI, the current recommendation is to add either fresh frozen porcine/bovine pancreas OR a commercially produced dehydrated powdered preparation of the same. These PEI dogs have very clear unmistakable clinical signs that do not appear until nearly 90+% of pancreas as been destroyed to give you again some idea of the reserve enzymatic capacity of the canine pancreas.



3) If enzymes to digest food were already in the food, then the food would self digest or undergo autolysis and be a pool of mush before being fed. In fact, food degradation [say a piece of meat left on the counter for 2-5 days] occurs because digestion by microbial contaminates on the surface have begun to "digest" the food. The unexposed center of the meat will be intact. Simply adding "enzymes" to a normal dog's foods does not increase the overall digestibility sufficiently to warrant lifting dollars from your wallet into someone else's.



4) Some ads for these supplements do correctly point out that the pet does not have enzymes to digest plant material - fiber. No mammal has enzymes to digest the structural components of plants, i.e., cellulase, etc. Only microbes in the rumen of cows, within the stomach of termites or in the large bowel of you and your dog can digest plant fiber. Even if you provide cellulases and they actually work in the small intestine of the dog (highly unlikely b/c they were not designed to work in that environment) the smaller subsequent fragments produced by the digestion are unlikely to be absorbed across the gut wall because again, cellulose subunits were not designed to be digested, hence not recognized by carriers within the small bowel of mammals.



For example; cellulose is made of glucose units but using a beta 1-4 linkage which is different from the glucose in starch or glycogen that uses an alpha 1-4 linkage. That one small differences beta vs. alpha renders the glucose within cellulose unavailable to mammals because it changes the whole configuration of the subsequent disaccharide unit.



Buying enzyme supplements for your normal healthy pet is NOT needed. Sellers of such products are playing on general ignorance and obfuscation. Physiology is being "rewritten" here by those who have a product to sell. And because things have gotten "out of hand" in the pet supplement market, the FDA is considering pressing our current laws into effect that would require such claims to be validated. If and when they do, it will be most interesting to see which supplement companies and/or products survive. I assure you most will simply disappear.

I have two friends with pups who have EPI. I would never use those supplements on a healthy pup.