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Cats may be an ‘excellent’ model to understand obesity in humans, study says
We don’t eat the same diet as our furry pals, but a new study has found that the gut microbiome in a popular and common pet is so similar to its human companion that it could be used to study obesity.
Feeding your pet a nutritious diet is crucial for their overall well-being, and an experienced veterinarian believes most pet owners are under the assumption that home-cooked food is good for their pets, which isn’t true. During the latest study, the researchers realized that the process was beneficial for both humans and pets in losing weight while establishing the link between their gut composition.
Study says fat cats may help understand obesity in humans
The veterinarian researchers at Ohio State University observed the diet of “fat cats” for 16 weeks before finding similarities in the dietary impact of gut microbiome found in both species.
The researchers fed seven obese cats four different diets over 16 weeks – free-feeding of a specially formulated weight-loss diet for one week, calorie-restricted feeding of the weight-loss diet, and returning to the original maintenance diet.
They analyzed the feces of the cats and found that “�the abundance of a short-chain fatty acid called propionic acid — shown in other mammals to regulate appetite, reduce fat accumulation and protect against obesity and diabetes” was more in the sample from those losing weight on a calorie-restricted diet.
The researchers involved in the study published in the Journal Scientific Reports are working on harnessing the “therapeutic power of microbes.”
“This paper highlights that when we calorie-restrict cats that are obese, we can alter their microbial ecosystem — and those community shifts that we see likely correlate with some metabolic outcomes,” said the lead study author, Janessa Winston.
The similarities in the gut composition
Cats can make an “excellent” animal model to understand overweight and obesity in humans as the researchers saw the microbes observed in their study “come up again and again in human studies.”
Even though more research is needed to understand the impact of the gut microbiome, cats are, by far, the best candidate to understand obesity in humans better as their “gut bacteria may tell us a lot about our own.”
The changes that were seen in cats come up in the context of obesity and type 2 diabetes in people, so the scientists think the popular best is a “really good model” to look into microbiome-directed therapeutics for obesity in humans.
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