It's looking like it may be due to a high amount of peas and lentils in some foods. I thought I had an ongoing thread on this...

https://vetnutrition.tufts.edu/2023...is-not-yet-known-but-it-hasnt-gone-away/

Thanks for the article, Lisa. I read that cats are affected too but not to the same degree as dogs. And I didn't realize there is a secondary DCM.

Thanks Lisa.

OK, you read the ingredient list and if the poisons (pulses, potatoes,etc.) are not in the first 10 you then scan for multiple culprits? So Fromm adult gold, recommended by Nova's breeder, has potatoes as ingredient #15 and sweet potatoes as ingredient # 25. Those are certainly minor ingredients-but that is not entirely reassuring.

Are there symptoms of early disease? She is full of energy.

Anyway, thanks a lot for the link. Knowledge is power.

MJ

For what it's worth:

FDA Current Position on DCM

FDA is waiting for better studies. So far the more recent articles I've seen are more a compiling of older studies than they are actual current research studies.

Hi MJ, I agree with your approach about the placement in the ingredient list. I personally have never been concerned about the potatoes, sweet potatoes, as thry have been used in diets for ages without this occurring. I have always been worried about legumes and have never fed them to any of my dogs, except when they were used low in the ingredient list, as opposed to being used as a protein replacement.

I was intrigued by the last line in this from the article.

"The nutritional causes of secondary DCM can be nutrient deficiencies (such as taurine or vitamin B1 deficiency), but also can be levels of nutrients or other dietary compounds that are too high (such as heavy metal toxicity). "

As a side note, people are using B1 to treat and prevent toxicity from metronidazole.

Thanks Woodreb, seems disheartening that we haven't heard more.

I just saw this information on another site about the FDA not linking DCM to grain-free pet food. However, corn may not be a safe ingredient because it is prone to mycotoxin contamination: https://truthaboutpetfood.com/its-not-true/

I know what you mean. However, even though the low taurine that was also thought to be linked to the DCM as well is not really proven, I have noticed it starting to show up in the ingredients list of some foods. I think where I was seeing it was in freeze dried raw dog foods I was looking at (don't recall what brands). So if the dog food manufacturers are going to start making changes such as this to their formulations, it's going to make studies harder to prove cause/effect because the results are now convoluted because the formulations have changed compared to what they were when these observations were first made.

And the problem I have with many of these kinds of studies is that the researchers often use unrealistic amounts of food or ingredient "to get an answer quicker". That just proves that if too much is eaten, it's bad, but a normal amount may have little or no effect. That's been true of studies for both animals and humans and leads to all kinds of misconceptions about what is good or bad for us.

Yeah, I thinkbthe low taurine thing fell out of favor awhile back. We don't hear of a lot of dogs that are are dieing in the same numbers, and I don't think the use of these foods have dropped that significantly, it makes me suspicious the taurine was a red herring. Not to discount the important of taurine generally of course!