What happens inside the gut when a cat gets fat?

A study conducted at the University of Illinois College of Agriculture, Consumer and Environmental Sciences investigated what happens inside the gut i.e. the stomach and colon of a domestic cat when they eat too much and gain weight.

Fat cat. Image: MikeB (Canva) under license.

High level of feline obesity

The study researchers kicked off with this shocking bit of information: about 60% of cats in the US are overweight. Comment: I thought it was about 40% but the percentage keeps on going up. This extra weight can lead to serious health problems such as type II diabetes and joint problems and chronic inflammation.

11 cats participated in the study and here is another little bit of information which I also find shocking. These cats were fed a standard dry food diet. Dry cat food is known to be somewhat addictive because of the fatty spray they coat the pellets with. And this proved to be the case because they were allowed free access to this dry cat food. And during this time the researchers collected blood and faecal samples at regular intervals and they monitored the cats' activity levels.

Once the cats were allowed to free-feed they ate too much. I find that very strange because my cat doesn't do this and he is allowed a free feed. Perhaps the difference is that these cats were in some sort of research facility where they were allowed to move around but they might have become bored and boredom can lead to overfeeding. My cat is an indoor/outdoor cat and he spends quite a lot of his time outside being active.

To return to these cats. They put on weight fairly quickly. At the beginning of the study, they had average body weights. Using a cat version of human BMI, their BCS scores were 5.41 on a 9-point scale. After 18 weeks of overfeeding their BCS was 8.27. This meant that they were 30% overweight.

Gut microbiota composition

There were significant changes in gut microbiota composition. And the changes were surprising because the gut microbiota composition improved. There was an increase in a bacteria which has antimicrobial activity, which inhibits pathogens and stimulates the immune system. And likewise, there was a decrease in another bacteria which is linked to pro-inflammatory diseases. The former is called Bifidobacterium and the latter is called Collinsella.

The results were the opposite to what has been measured in overweight humans. In other words, when humans gain weight their gut microbiota becomes worse and less effective.

Transit times

This measures the amount of time the food, digested food and faeces remain in the body and travels through the body. The transit time was reduced and so was "digestive efficiency". When a cat eats less food, their stomach extracts more nutrients from the food and vice versa. This is because the food passes through the digestive system faster preventing an efficient extraction of nutrients.

Also course the cats pooped more which is to be expected! And finally, faecal pH decreased which meant that the poop became more acidic when they became fatter. pH measures the acidic and alkaline levels of a substance.

After this study they were put on a controlled restricted diet and they lost weight. The study impliedly found that if you feed dry cat food to a domestic cat you should restrict the diet. In other words, you should control the amount of food they have.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

The stray cats of Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war 2023

Of course, during the war all the talk of Gaza is about people. All of it. When animals are mentioned, it is in making unfair and derogatory analogies of Hamas terrorists 'behaving like animals'. That's the best the Israelis can do when it comes to animal welfare. Correction when it comes to animal destruction because there is lots of it in Gaza. 

Screenshot.

We know how many people have been killed in Gaza and how many Israel's were killed by Hamas. We know the latter with complete accuracy. The published number is 'over 1400'. The Palestinian authorities guess the former at around 8,800 at the date of this post but it climbs relentlessly.

Three-thousand children have been killed. How many animals? No idea. Not a clue. No one has said. No one cares. War exposes human speciesism. You can see how devalued animals are in war. They are no more important than a building that has been shelled to destruction.

I think people forget that they are sentient beings. So here is a little nondescript video (below) of a cat sauntering through the rubble of Gaza City. He is a ginger tabby and his nose is very sore. I wonder if he had to push his way through rubble to escape. It was probably something like that.

How does he survive? Where is the water? Water is scarce for people never mind the stray cats. And what about food? Perhaps he lives on his hunting skills. There must be a lot of rodents in the ruins. I don't see food as a major issue for the surviving stray cats of Gaza. But water, yes. A big issue. Look at all the dust and rubbish.

They say a cat can live for 3 days without water. But if they have prey to catch, they can get some water from the prey animal as mammals are 70% water. I reckon these cats will survive as if they are living in the desert like their wild cat ancestor. The domestic cat is well adapted to survive in arid environments.

But it is horrible to see these cats struggling. The same for dogs. We need to think of them a bit more. They are entirely innocent. As innocent as the infants shelled into oblivion or trapped under thousands of tons of rubble.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Animal shelter staff threw away all blankets, towels, sheets, animal beds and other similar items

The Pennsylvania Humane Society, an umbrella animal charity working in partnership, as I understand it, with animal shelters, is seeking donations after a parvo outbreak contaminated items in one of their shelters.

Cat infected with feline distemper. Image in public domain.

In other words, a shelter within their auspices which has not been named by the way, but is in Altoona, was sadly affected by a feline panleukopenia viral outbreak (aka parvo) which is highly contagious. This resulted in the staff deciding to throw away all the items with which the infected cat had come into contact which included the ones in the title.

The shelter concerned ran a fundraiser which raised $1820 to help offset the medical costs.

The Humane Society is seeking donations to help with replacing the items that have been discarded.

There is also a need for funding to pay for paper towels because the staff, in cleaning up with bleach and OdoBan disinfectant, are using paper towels which are disposable. This is in order to minimise further infections and to try and put a stop to the outbreak as soon as possible.

RELATED: Best Disinfectant for Feline Viruses.

Bleach is a very good killer of this contagious virus. We are told that the shelter cats are vaccinated against feline panleukopenia. Unfortunately, the vaccine is not 100% effective. Cats are testing positive. Treatment by veterinarians is expensive hence the need for more funding.

The shelter has 37 cats in foster homes and 53 cats at the shelter. The cats and foster homes obviously helps with quarantine issues.

Feline panleukopenia is not invariably fatal but it is a serious and highly contagious viral disease. The prognosis is variable depending upon several factors including overall health, the cat's age and the timing and effectiveness of medical intervention. Kittens have a higher mortality rate while adult cats are often more resilient with a better chance of survival.

It is essential to isolate infected cats from other cats in the shelter and practice good hygiene to curtail the spread of the virus.

Source: The Altoona Mirror.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Woman with seven cats trapped in her home surrounded by floodwater

Scotland has been incredibly wet recently. In fact, the whole of the UK is completely sodden and it is raining incessantly at the moment in the south of England. Is this global warming? We didn't used to get it this wet in years gone by. Nowhere near. Scotland has suffered the worst of it and Ms Brown in Brechin, Scotland, says that it is the worst flooding she has seen in 25 years.

Ms Brown trapped in her home with her 7 cats on River Street, Brechin, Scotland. Image: PA.

She is trapped in her home with her seven cats. It seems fortunate to me that her home is slightly raised with steps leading to the front door. This must have helped to protect her home from flooding inside.

The chaos has been caused by Storm Babet with many residents evacuated from homes and cars and lorries stranded.

I will turn my mind to the problems encountered by Ms Brown, stuck in her home with her seven cats. The question for her will be when she can leave her home to buy some food and other provisions.

And this begs the question as to whether she has sufficient food and cat litter in her home to supply her cats for the foreseeable future. As a rough guess, I would estimate that she won't be able to get out of the house - unless she swims or rescue teams come around in a boat - for about a week.

With seven cats, she needs quite a lot of food and cat litter so unless she has a good supply she will run out.

The story also begs the question as to whether people should have seven cats! A tricky question. I don't think they should. Ms Brown lives on a road, ironically called River Street. I suspect her cats are full-time indoor cats to protect them from road traffic.

I don't think it is viable to keep seven cats inside a home full-time unless you are incredibly well organised which is highly unlikely. You'll get cat smells, poop smells, urine smells, you name it and you've got it in terms of odours. Ammonia comes to mind. That's because it's almost impossible to keep a home with seven cat odour free when they live inside full-time.

It can be done and it has been done but with great expertise and commitment. I'm not saying that Ms Brown has a smelly home. It is likely that she has but is not certain. She may manage her seven cats really well. That said, I still don't think seven cats should be banged up inside a home full-time.

My neighbour has a similar number and they, too, are full-time indoor cats. One of them cried outside in a miserable cat run for about two months and now he has fallen silent. His morale has been crushed by the fact that he knows that he will never get out. So, I am sure that he just curls up and sleeps all day. I find that difficult to accept. I don't like to think about it because it upsets me.

The video below come from the Daily Mail newspaper and I can't guarantee that it will continue to function in the long-term future. If it has stopped functioning, I am sorry.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Friend tells pregnant woman that she is a bad mother because she won't get rid of her cats

NEWS AND COMMENT: This is a story which probably happens not infrequently inside homes across the planet. And it's a bit sad that two workplace friends fell out when one of them became pregnant and insisted on keeping her four cats despite the protestations of her friend.

Pregnant women don't have to get rid of their cat because there are alternative ways of dealing with a potential infection of Toxoplasma gondii which can be highly effective and protect the baby completely.

And what is doubly upsetting is that other workplace women agreed with her friend that he should give up her cats. It seems that they might have ostracised her to a certain extent.

The woman in question has lived with cats all her life. She has four cats; all rescues by the way which is great. She was baffled by her friend insisting that she get rid of the cats to protect her unborn baby.

The story comes from Reddit.com. The pregnant woman is 30 years of age and her friend, Josie, is 28. The pregnant woman has been married for 10 years.

As sooner as her friend found out that she was pregnant she went into a long description of why the cats had to go and why pregnant women should not change the cat litter boxes to protect the unborn child.

She was somewhat baffled by the advice. I think she knew about toxoplasmosis already and as she had grown up with cats all her life, she thought that if she was going to get the disease she would have been infected already. A good percentage of people are infected by toxoplasmosis without realising it because the disease is asymptomatic.

But the big point is this one: she's got a husband who can change the litter box! There was no need for this pregnant woman to take any chances.

The point here is that pregnant women don't have to get rid of their cats because there are better ways of dealing with this potential health problem concerning the unborn child. Although this potential health problem is, I agree, a serious one.

Another point worth making is that nearly all toxoplasmosis infections in humans come from eating undercooked food, handling uncooked food or drinking unpasteurised milk. The source is food rather than the domestic cat.

The problem is this: the parasite which causes a Toxoplasma gondii infection can cross the placenta and infect the developing foetus where it can cause congenital toxoplasmosis.

RELATED: Truth about Toxoplasmosis and Cats - click to read this article for more on this topic.

The severity of the infection depends upon the gestation age at which the mother becomes infected.

If the infection is early, it is generally more severe. The unborn child can experience a range of complications including birth defects, stillbirth or miscarriage. The birth defects can include hearing loss, intellectual disabilities, blindness, I inflammation, visual impairments or neurological disorders.

Infected unborn children, once born may not show symptoms at birth but they can develop complications later in life such as hearing problems or cognitive development problems.

Common sense precautions are the answer. Pregnant women should practise good hygiene through hand washing after handling raw meat and, as mentioned, avoiding contact with cat litter boxes. Raw vegetables should be washed thoroughly.

Lastly, domestic cats get a bad rap for being a vector of Toxoplasma gondii. They are only infective for about 10 days in their entire life. It is not as if they are carrying the disease all their lives and can spread it to hundreds of people. It doesn't work like that. People who provide advice like this woman should understand toxoplasmosis a little more thoroughly before handing down advice to pregnant women.

Toxoplasmosis is a zoonosis or a zoonotic disease because it can infect both animals and people and cross between them.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.