New Information Challenges DCM’s Link to Grain Free Pet Food – Truth about Pet Food

The question if grain free dog food is linked to heart disease (DCM) in dogs has been in discussion for years. After initially appearing to be siding with grain-included pet food manufacturers, the FDA has basically refused to comment any further – leaving pet owners confused.

FDA’s lack of comment has not stopped researchers at BSM Partners, a “pet care research, consulting” firm and “Dr. Stacey Leach DVM, DACVIM, Chief of Cardiology and Associate Teaching Professor of Cardiology at the University of Missouri’s Veterinary Health Center“, they have just released an interesting survey. Note: BSM Partners clients include manufacturers of grain free pet foods.

The press release about the new DCM information is titled: “DCM Incidence in Dogs Remained Flat with No Correlation to 500% Growth of Grain-Free Diet Category Over Nearly a Decade.” Simply put, the researchers compared the annual percentages of cases of DCM to the sales increase percentages of grain free pet food. It would be assumed that if grain free pet food was the cause of an increase in DCM diagnosis’s in dogs, the percentages of cases would increase similarly with the rise in sales of grain free pet food.

This new information is not officially a research study, it was referred to it as “a retrospective survey that evaluated the annual incidence of canine dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) diagnosed by veterinary cardiologists across the United States, along with previously unknown information regarding the growth of grain-free pet food store sales.”

Quotes from the survey: “The study aimed to analyze the annual incidence of DCM diagnosed by veterinary cardiologists over time, in addition to the age and breed distribution of DCM patients. Additionally, this study compiled brick-and-mortar grain-free diet sales data from 2011 to 2019, then overlayed it with annual incidence to analyze correlation.”

“Eighty-eight veterinary referral hospitals with board-certified or residency-trained veterinary cardiologists were contacted to represent different geographic areas throughout the United States. Of those contacted, 14 hospitals agreed to participate in the DCM survey. A DCM case was included based on the criteria of diagnosis by a board-certified veterinary cardiologist or supervised cardiology resident.“

This chart provided: “Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) annual average from all participating cardiologist services over the past 20 years.”

The DCM survey also documented sales data for grain free pet foods; “Growth in annual grain-free pet food sales, in the United States, were provided by the Nielsen Company for the years 2011–2019.”

The following chart provides “Grain-free pet food sales and annual average incidence rate of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) from 2011 to 2019.”

Under “Discussion” the DCM survey stated the information they collected did not find a rise in cases of DCM over 20 years, and they did not find that an increase of sales of grain free pet food resulted in a rise of DCM cases.

“This investigation did not observe a correlation between the rise in brick-and-mortar grain-free pet food sales and the average incidence rate of DCM, considering the cohort of institutions that participated and the breeds of their cardiology referral cases across the United States. Furthermore, the DCM incidence data received from participating referral hospitals did not support a concurrent overall increase in cases of DCM from 2000 to 2019.”

To read the full survey, Click Here.

Wishing you and your pet the best –

Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
TruthaboutPetFood.com
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