Parâmetros urinários e sanguíneos de gatos consumindo alimentos úmidos com e sem balanço cátion-aniônico

Abstract

Consumption of water is vital for all terrestrial beings. With the difficulty of voluntary consumption of water by cats, the use of moist food as a way to compensate for water losses is important. Urolithiasis is among the diseases that most affect the health of domestic cats, being present in 23% of cases of feline lower urinary tract diseases. Studies show a high correlation between the excess of bases of a food and the urinary pH generated, being possible to influence it without the need of inclusion of additives. On the other hand, the greater amount of water ingested is able to decrease urine saturation and decrease the chances of uroliths appearing. The objective of this work was to demonstrate how the correct dietary cation-anionic balance (DCAB) of two moist foods can favor an ideal urinary pH and how the change in food can affect the blood parameters of healthy adult cats. Therefore, two foods (initial A and initial B) were initially evaluated without the correct balance of minerals, which, after a reformulation to increase the amount of anions, were reassessed (corrected A and corrected B) using 12 adult cats with a mean age of 5.0 years, with a mean weight of 3.66 ± 0.18 kg, males and females. The experimental design was a completely randomized design, with subdivided plots scheme, totaling six replications per treatment. For food consumption (NM), there was a significant difference (P <0.05) between foods A and B. No difference was found between feed intake (P> 0.05). The DM intake of food was higher for the initial food A compared to the corrected food A and also for the initial foods compared to the corrected ones. The mean values of urine density of the animals receiving the experimental feed did not differ significantly (P> 0.05). As for urinary volume, the cats that received food A without correction had higher values than those who consumed the corrected food A. For in vivo pH values, corrected food A and B had lower pH values, and the values found in animals consuming food A were lower than those in animals that consumed food B. The measured pH values in vivo showed a high correlation with those predicted by the equations suggested by Kienzle and Wilms-Eilers (1994) and by Jeremias et al. (2013) with the exception of food B. Animals that consumed uncorrected foods had lower urea concentrations than those corrected and those who consumed foods B presented higher values than those consuming foods A. For serum creatinine, the animals that consumed foods A presented higher concentrations than the animals that consumed foods B. Thus, it is concluded that the correction of DCAB by altering the dietary mineral content is effective to modulate urinary pH.