NUTRITION
Digestive health for your cat Every cat owner needs to be mindful of the health of their pet’s digestive system. Only if your pet’s gastrointestinal tract is healthy will it receive enough nutrients and energy. So, what do you need to know about cat digestion? WORDS AND IMAGE SUPPLIED BY NESTLE PURINA and provide energy for the nutritional and metabolic processes of bacteria. To summarise, probiotics are bacteria that are beneficial for the health of the digestive tract and digestion of the animal, and prebiotics fuel the probiotics, as well as assisting various cells of the stomach and intestines in the digestion and assimilation of food.
What are the benefits of probiotics and prebiotics? There are three main functions of probiotics: • Strengthening disease resistance and minimising intestinal upset. Probiotics compete with harmful bacteria for habitation in the gut and enhance the protective capabilities of the intestinal system. • Improving stool quality. A cat’s stool is about 40–50% composed of intestinal bacteria, so its quality and composition greatly depends on the microflora. • Intestinal cell nutrition. In the process of their vital activity, probiotics produce special nutrients—volatile fatty acids, which serve as food for intestinal cells—enterocytes. Prebiotics have two main functions: • Prebiotic fibres serve as food for microflora. • Insoluble fibre accompanying the prebiotic components improves intestinal motility. For cats, this is very beneficial, as it helps to remove hairballs from the intestines, preventing excessive regurgitation of hair.
How can prebiotics be provided to your cat? What is microflora? Microflora is a collection of all bacteria living in the gastrointestinal tract of a cat, which interact closely with the food consumed and with the tissues lining the intestines. The microflora of any animal is represented by both useful species of bacteria and potentially harmful ones. But they are no less important for the body: for example, to maintain local resistance of the immune system. In addition, microflora is involved in the synthesis of several vitamins and is necessary for the absorption of nutrients from food.
So, the balance of microflora is the most important thing for a cat’s gastrointestinal tract health, and foods containing probiotics or prebiotics can be used to maintain this balance.
What are probiotics and prebiotics? Probiotics are live microorganisms that, when consumed in adequate doses, provide benefits to the body. Prebiotics, on the other hand, are nutrients that can have a beneficial effect on the intestinal microflora, which stimulate its growth and biological activity,
The best solution would be to choose a commercial diet containing prebiotic fibre. One of the best sources of dietary fibre for cats is inulin, a substance from chicory root. It is added to all PRO PLAN ® cat food, which provides all the benefits of prebiotics to your pet.
How can probiotics be provided to your cat? The brand-new PRO PLAN Adult Dry Cat Food products all contain guaranteed Bacillus Coagulans Probiotics for digestive and immune health.
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