The role of Diet In Cancer (pets)

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Hello Dot

Did you know cancer is now a leading cause of death in dogs and cats and will affect about one in three pets in their lifetime?

The increased rate of cancer in domestic pets has paralleled the increasing rate of cancer in humans in the Western world, leading to the conclusion that there are fundamental underlying similarities between the causes of increased incidence of cancer in people and in animals.


The classic Western-style diet, which is high in carbohydrates and refined sugars, is very closely paralleled by commercial pet foods that can also be extremely high in refined carbohydrates and much lower in the essential proteins that canines require. As a practising veterinarian with 25 years’ experience, I am firmly of the belief that processed pet foods, both tinned and dry foods, play a significant role in the increasing incidence of cancer in pets.

Prevention is more effective than the cure
I have spent many years investigating cancer and trialling a myriad of different approaches in treating a range of different cancers. My fundamental belief is that cancer is much easier to prevent that it is to treat once established in the body and my experience in practice clearly indicates that the rate of cancer is significantly lower in pets that have been raised on a balanced raw food or fresh meat diet, and significantly higher in animals that eat a predominantly heavily processed and cooked diet.

The importance of the immune system
At its simplest level cancer is basically a failure of the immune system. It is accepted that the body undergoes mutations on a regular basis, and that mutated cells that have no function are what we call cancer cells. When these cancer cells grow out of control they form clusters or ‘tumours’.

It is widely believed that the immune system is responsible for recognising and destroying these mutated cells on a regular basis, and that this process occurs throughout our entire life. It is generally only in our later years, when our immune system starts to fail, that some of these cancer cells escape detection and begin to grow out of control, resulting in the condition we call cancer.

Giving this fundamental understanding of how the body controls cancer, it would follow that supporting and strengthening the immune system with a balanced fresh meat diet is the best defence while using other conventional or herbal options to actively treat the cancer. In next week’s newsletter I’ll look at how specific nutritional can help bolster your pet’s immune system to ward off cancer.