A new study conducted by the Banfield Pet Hospital (Vancouver, Washington) reports that as many as 1 in 3 dogs and cats living in the United States are overweight. The study was based on data collected by Banfield veterinary clinics on 2.5 million dogs and half a million cats over the past year.
Obesity in pets was not related to the weight status of their owners. In fact, overweight pets were less prevalent in states whose populations of humans were more overweight. They also found increased intestinal parasites in pets living in states with the most overweight humans, which may be why pets living in those areas weigh less. Although it is not clear why pets in those areas were more likely to have parasites.
According to PetMD, obesity increases mortality risk in pets and contributes to a host of complications including fatigue, difficulty breathing, intolerance to heat, high blood pressure, arthritis, diabetes, liver disease, decreased resistance to disease, and an increased risk for developing cancer.
Sources:
- Log in to post comments
More like this
Image Source: Newsweek (DLILLC-Corbis)
I just came across this neat synopsis from Newsweek about obesity in cats and dogs that is based on information from the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention. I was really surprised to learn that 54% of pet cats and dogs are considered overweight or obese.…
Image from Pete Markham via Flickr Creative Commons (https://flic.kr/p/8ctqVC)
Researchers at the University of Cambridge in Britain recently studied 'willpower' in pet Labrador retrievers. After allowing each dog to smell a hot dog, the researchers placed the hot dog in a hamster cage and…
Because of the flood of responses I got to yesterday's post on The Insanity of the FDA Approved Obesity Drug for Dogs, I thought I'd start a series of follow up posts answering the many questions I got by email and in the comments here. The most common question was, Okay, so the drug is a bad idea…
By Shanghai killer whale (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
I just read an interesting blog from the I Spy Physiology website sponsored by the American Physiological Society which described results from a recent study suggesting that …