Taurine deficiency in food--an excellent article

[Ginny Nightingale]

Update--fixed the link--was not working today!

Dr Jean Dodds and I are not always on the same page at all, but this article really goes over the research that has been done on the recent Grain-free food relationship to heart issues. I think the bottom line is that to blame all grain-free foods is inappropriate and that much more is unknown than is known.  More research has to be done and that research has to be done with more accuracy. The reason this is important is that I am seeing MANY comments on FB doodle pages about how vets are advising their clients to stop feeding grain-free--and to me, that seems like they are jumping the gun--maybe being overly cautious?

I welcome comments from our resident experts!

https://www.hemopet.org/dcm-heart-disease-dogs-exotic-ingredients/

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Thanks for posting this, Ginny. We've had many discussions in the Food Group about this very complicated and misleading issue. I agree with your assessment. And once again, I strongly urge every DK member to stay away from FB doodle group advice/discussions about food or health issues in general. 
One of our more informative discussions on this in The Food Group:
https://doodlekisses.com/group/thefoodgroup/forum/topics/taurine-de...

[Ginny Nightingale]

I agree!! And not sure the vets are steering people in the right direction either, unfortunately!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

No of course they aren't. As always, they are steering people towards the Hills & Purina garbage that earns them a nice profit. 

[Maryann,Roo and Tigger]

Please remember that your veterinarian is trained to assess research and statistics.  As with all people, including health professionals, some are greedy and profit from intentional sales of products that are less than ideal, over-price,etc.

On the other hand most people and professionals, including, veterinarians, are just trying to do their job well and their advice is usually well informed and not for profit.  If you do not have trust in your veterinarian then I suggest you change to another vet.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

The problem is that veterinarians do not study nutrition or diet in vet school; there is no nutrition curriculum. That's a documented fact. This is not unlike medical doctors, who also receive little to no nutritional education. The difference is that your doctor doesn't sell you food. 
I trust my vet on what he was educated in, which is medicine. I wouldn't take medical advice from a dietician and I don't take nutrition advice from a doctor. 

[Ginny Nightingale]

My daughter the vet believes in the food that has met the standards for nutrition from the AAFCO--without that seal, she has no faith in it. She seems to have a lot of knowledge about nutrition (Cornell vet school grad) but that may be because her primary career and training is in large animal veterinary work and lots of nutritional concerns come up with the big animals!

[Sharon & Monty]

The page does not open for me.

Recently my Monty has been deemed with low platelets. My vet never once mentioned a low taurine and she knows what he eats, but I tried to research that on the internet with mixed results to see if it could be his situation. He is very healthy and has no issues, after two tests, she said let us to wait and see. 

any suggestions?