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Originally Posted by Wylie's Mom  I believe this *is* a peer-reviewed article. And a rather interesting one too. I don't want to say much more than that at this point, bc I actually need to read it a second time and digest it more fully.
Here is the article's "conclusion", which is always at the end of most any peer-reviewed article, and can help in terms of understanding the goals of the authors: "To our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive study undertaken to investigate the relationship between physiological parameters such as macronutrient digestibility and faecal health score, and faecal microbial composition in dogs. We have shown that the microbiota changes in response to diet in dogs, with Clostridiaceae, Erysipelotrichaceae and Bacteroidaceae apparently central to the relationships between microbiota and intestinal health. The data suggest that when interpreting changes in microbial composition in relation to diet, comparisons to other species may not be valid. The data also provide a basis for future studies which may further characterise the functional role of the microbiota and how they interact with diet to influence health. The understanding gained by such studies could lead to a new definition of optimal nutrition for carnivorous pets, and a range of products based on that definition."
For me right now, the bottom line is that it's *very* encouraging to see (in layman's medical terms) what we call "in-out studies"; in other words, it's amazing to see such a deep-dive into the macronutrients and how they come out the other end - those are complicated studies, but could potentially tell us a LOT.  |
You correctly quoted the conclusion of the study. My critique is of the press release at the top of this thread, which falsely states the results of the study as follows:
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New Zealand Premium Petfood Alliance spokesperson Neil Hinton said the study findings support the view the pet food manufactures behind the Alliance have been advocating for a long time.
“While dogs are considered members of the family, they are carnivores so shouldn’t be fed a humanised diet containing high levels of carbohydrates. The study supports our long-held view that dogs need to be fed a high meat, low carbohydrate diet best suited to their biological makeup.”
Mr Hinton said there is growing interest from pet owners about biologically appropriate diets that lead to healthier and happier pets.
“To date there has been hardly any published research, so this study is a significant contribution to the international animal nutrition field. A lot of diets on the market have been designed to ensure a dog survives, but this research shows that high meat diet is the best to help a dog thrive.”
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The research was basic and preliminary, and did not "show that high meat diet is the best to help a dog thrive." That's something that the press release tacked on without any proof whatsoever. I think I did a good job above of demonstrating that the New Zealand meat export and pet food industry is NOT an unbiased observer, and that they have an agenda that they are aggressively pursuing independently of facts and data. It's nice seeing this research being done, but it's sad seeing it misused so shamelessly. There have been plenty of feeding studies showing that dogs do as well, and perhaps better, on a mixed diet than on a high meat diet. These studies are based on parameters such as health and longevity, which are actually more important than percent digestibility and poo size. There is a good discussion of meaningful research here:
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/raw...make-you-barf/