January 15, 2008:-  You've heard it said before that pets resemble their owners. That's true in more ways than one. The diseases they get are all too familiar, too: heart disease, cancer, arthritis. The rise in human diseases among pets is no great mystery. They're getting sick for the same reasons humans are: too much cooked, processed food. The difference is that you have a choice; they don't.

And if they're not getting adequate nutrition through their diets, you should at least considering investing in supplements.

You know that I've long defended multivitamins against arbitrary and alarmist attacks by the media and medical communities. Not too long ago, there was a study that made the absurd suggestion that daily multivitamin use could be harmful and even deadly. But I was here to let you know that while I may not agree that the multivitamins that are commonly available are as good as they claim to be, they certainly aren't going to kill you.

But today's item is about the benefits of multivitamin and supplement use, not the nonexistent dangers. And it comes to us from the veterinary community. Even pets at an advanced age can benefit greatly from pet supplements.

Take Sierra, for example. Sierra the cat wasn't doing so well. She couldn't jump on the counter. She didn't want to play. She seemed to be in pain. But since she's started taking vitamins, this 13-year-old feline is frisky as ever. She's jumping up on the counter. She's chasing balls of yarn. In short, she's got her old life back. In Sierra's case, the improvement in quality of life was significant after the introduction of a multivitamin supplement.

The pet supplement industry is growing because the results have been good for pets taking supplements. In the case of Sierra, the multivitamins she took included glucosamine and chondroitin, both of which are enormously beneficial for joint ailments. Glucosamine is a key component of joint cartilage, and is commonly used for treatment of osteoarthritis, along with chondroitin. Anyone familiar with dietary supplements knows of these two elements and is aware that they're often combined. What you may not know is that there's been a fair degree of controversy over their actual effectiveness in the treatment of humans with joint pain �?in spite of the many cases of positive results in several clinical trials.

That stink you smell is Big Pharma.

Is it any wonder that there are doubts about the effectiveness of glucosamine and chondroitin? After all �?these are natural elements that needn't be formulated or created by labs �?the source is the exoskeletons of crustaceans, arthropods, and fungi. And as many bows as Big Pharma likes to take, there's no way they can be credited for the existence of lobsters or mushrooms (though it wouldn't surprise me if the buggers tried!). And according to vets, these supplements are working like gangbusters for older cats and dogs that have the same kinds of degenerative joint issues that humans have.

The vet community was wary of multivitamins and supplements at first. Their benefits weren't generally taught in veterinary schools, and there weren't many on the market. But it's hard to argue with results. (And even the smartest pooch hasn't figured out the placebo effect.) Veterinarian Dr. Tim Montague was one of those unconvinced about the benefits of pet supplements. Then he tried them on his Golden Retriever Ayla, who was suffering from an arthritic shoulder.

"She could barely make it up the stairs, but with within a week after the supplement, she was running and catching Frisbees in the yard. That sold me," Montague said.

Now don't go slipping your dog or cat one of your own supplements with their breakfast, since the effect of many human supplements are untested on pets and the dosages can be very different. In fact, vets claim that many of the supplements actually made for pets are of dubious quality, and of a lower standard than the quality of supplements for people. Knowing what I know about the so-called "quality" of human supplements, that's a frightening thought.

The lesson here is that the right vitamins can be a boon to the health and quality of life for people and their pets. But if you're going to take them �?or give them �?be sure to get them fully "vetted" out by your doctor or vet.

William Campbell Douglass II, M.D
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