Cathy Moon said:
...I often wonder if dogs experience cholesterol problems like humans do from eating red meat. I always avoid eating red meat and high cholesterol foods, and now having 2 dogs with low grade heart murmurs I want to do what I can to keep them healthy.
...!
Cathy, i've wondered about this too.
Apparently it's not the red meat per se that becomes a problem as far as high cholesterol-related atherosclerosis goes, but a combination of things in the diets of cultures that have epidemics of this condition and heart disease generally.
There are cultures, traditional cultures, rural cultures, where red meat is a staple of their diet yet they don't suffer from heart disease and live to very old ages (for example in rural former Soviet Georgia)(i saw a segment on 60 Minutes).
Apparently in the modern diet, problems such as heart disease and cancer and many others, "diseases of civilization," are not simply the fault of red meat but of high carbohydrate diets and the effect on things like insulin and sugar homeostasis, as well as effects of various chemical additives and waste products of modern technology, mass production of fool in particular.
I believe in Eskimo culture, they eat nothing but red meat, polar bear, and have no development of heart disease or its precursors. Their diet is high fat as well, it's not just lean red meat that they eat. They eat every part of the prey because food is scarce. Of course they don't have long life expectancy due to other causes of death, but despite eating only red meat high in cholesterol, they don't have even the early signs of heart disease or cancer at the time of death.
But if you take Eskimos and move them into modern urban environments and they change their diets, and become more sedentary, they do develop these diseases of civilization, such as cancer, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, heart disease etc (all of these are now believed to have a common pathology, chronic inflammation, which is in turn related to immune system functioning).
the current interest in low carbohydrate diets in modern culture comes in part from cross cultural research into these health variables.
So i'm guessing that something similar might be involved for dogs--they may be able to eat high cholesterol foods without cardiovascular damage because, particularly in the wild, they don't eat carbohydrates or foods with additives, preservatives, fillers, etc, and/or, they get adequate exercise. I'm thinking a domestic dog fed high protein food and exercised adequately would not have any diet related cardiovascular damage. I would like to hear what the facts are on this subject.