Dog Diabetes Is On the Rise

Dog diabetes is very similar to diabetes found in people. We are seeing as rapid a rise in dog diabetes as we are seeing in humans.

Mostly, the rise in diabetes in both dogs and humans is attributable to the same health factors:

• Way too much sugar in diet. Dog food companies add sugar to dog food and dog snacks to mask the bad taste of the low quality ingredients they use.
• High carb low protein diet. It is more profitable for dog food companies to produce food that is higher in carb and lower in protein. Over the last few decades, dog food has been manufactured with less and less protein and an increasing amount of carbs. Andrew Lewis gives homemade dog food recipes for dogs that have diabetes in his report which are very easy to prepare. You can make up a batch and freeze portions for several days. The vast majority of commercial brands of dog food will only make it worse (in fact, that is what probably caused it in the first place) but Andrew has found a few exceptions and discusses this in his report.
• Eating a diet of mostly highly processed lower quality food. Commercial dog foods are very highly processed to the point where proteins and other nutrients are often denatured. Dry dog food is more highly processed than canned dog food.
• Not enough exercise.  It is well documented in humans that exercise lowers blood sugar so it stands to reason that increasing your dog's activity level could help prevent and reverse diabetes in dogs.