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Intro Knowledge & Respect Our signature sentence seemed appropriate for this last newsletter of the year because, as usual, fall was a period rich in congresses, and once again ROYAL CANIN® was well represented with many lectures and posters… some of which are in this edition. On the topic of scientific events in the fall, a short teaser: WINSS 2016 (WALTHAM™ International Nutritional Sciences Symposium) will take place next October… save the date! (see ad on the last page) Hélène Charles (R&D-Scientific Support)
Adverse Food Reaction Feeding ROYAL CANIN® Anallergenic is cost-saving when performing an elimination trial. The purpose of this study was to compare the cost of an elimination trial using either home-cooked diets or commercially available hydrolyzed protein-based diets. To diagnose Adverse Food Reaction (AFR), the standard procedure is to perform an elimination trial followed by provocation tests. The vet practitioner can either prescribe a home-cooked diet or a commercially available diet designed to cater for AFR, the most commonly used in France being hydrolyzed-protein diets.
Home-cooking is time consuming, but both owners and vet practitioners often think that it is the cheapest option. In this study, conducted by four boardcertified dermatologists, the ready-touse diet prescribed was ROYAL CANIN® Anallergenic (formulated with extensively hydrolyzed proteins) and the home-cooked diets were designed by a board-certified nutritionist to ensure that they were balanced. Sixty-four dogs were included in the randomised study and were fed either a home-cooked diet (30 dogs) or ROYAL CANIN® Anallergenic (34 dogs). For both diet types, all feeding costs were carefully detailed by the dog owner (grocery store invoices for home-cooked diets or buying costs for ROYAL CANIN® Anallergenic) and reported by the investigators. Two of the dogs fed the home-cooked diet were excluded from the cost comparison due to missing invoices. For the remaining 62 dogs, there were no significant differences between groups regarding age and bodyweight at inclusion or in the duration of the elimination trial. The daily cost of the home-cooked diet, standardized for a 20-kg dog, was significantly higher than the daily cost of ROYAL CANIN® Anallergenic (p=0.004) with a mean cost of 3.60 €/day (range: 1.14-8.5) and 2.60 €/day (range: 1.75-3.63) respectively.
Contrary to previous beliefs, feeding a home-cooked diet was more expensive than feeding a highly hydrolyzed protein-based diet. On top of being time-saving for the dog owner, ROYAL CANIN® Anallergenic might be the cost-saving choice when performing an elimination trial. Cadiergues M.C, Muller A, Bensignor E, Heripret D, Yaguiyan-Colliard L, Mougeot I. Cost evaluation of home-cooked and an extensively hydrolyzed diets during an elimination trial: a randomized prospective study. Proceedings of the 28th ESVD congress, Krakow (Poland), 24-26 September 2015.
Key numbers Elimination trial for a 20-kg dog
2.60 €/day with ROYAL CANIN®
Anallergenic vs 3.60 €/day with home-cooked diet