early stage kidney disease

Question
My 14 year old cat was just diagnosed with early stage renal failure....the vet said that it isn't too bad now , but recommend moving her to a wet food rather then the dry food we feed her now....do you have any suggestions of a good wet food for this condition?...thank you!

Answer
Wet or dry isn't the issue when it comes to a renal diet- although some vets think that the moisture in the wet helps somewhat.

The most important factor in a renal diet is that the protein be low enough to take the load off of the kidneys, but be of a high quality and extremely bio-available to the body.

Hills makes a prescription diet called K/D that comes in wet and dry formulas. It is highly digestible and has a lower protein level, but it is enough to maintain a senior cat yet is highly bio-available.

I can vouch for the efficacy of this food. I put my cat Floyd on it when he was ten and he lived another 10 yrs eating nothing but K/D. And he loved it! I fed him a few spoonfuls of wet in the morning and then he had dry out to eat as needed. He didn't eat much, even though he was a large cat, because the food is so highly digested that it doesn't take much to fulfill his energy needs.

So that is what I would recommend. I would stay away from ALL grocery store foods as they are very high in protein, never mind what the labels say. Those are not a reliable source of the actual amount of any of the nutrients in any given food.

K/D isn't cheap, but if it can help your girl to live another 5+ years, isn't it worth it? It was to me and I am very happy I fed it to my beloved Floyd. He died at the age of 19 + of old age. Never was he sick and never did he suffer.

If you absolutely cannot afford the K/D then I would recommend the Science Diet Senior Longevity formula in wet and dry. It also has lower protein but not quite as low as K/D. K/D stands for Kidney diet so it is formulated and trial fed just for kidney disease.

I hope that answers your questions. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.