Danny
Posted : 3/24/2006 10:51:25 PM
Hello there
I am a Parasitologist by profession, and maybe this is a bad thing right now, as I really do not like to write posts such as the following. However, speaking out some potentially offending truths is or ought to be a civil duty, so let me warn any participant in this forum from falling for 'information' like this. There is *NO* peer reviewed study in any of the major Parasitology journals that shows any effectiveness of these herbal supplements. Claims that a product "kills all of the hundreds of different kinds of parasites" sure sound good, but recall what your mother always told you: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Were there such a mix, you can bet the farm that one of the oh-so-evil chemical-corporations would have incorporated that into their medications already - who would not want to advertise with something like 'Kills hundreds of parasites'? (remember, dog health is a multibillion dollar industry, and the industry could not care less what they sell, as long as it makes them good bucks)
Furthermore, to say that something is 100% natural is an entirely empty statement. For instance, about 40% of all medications are entirely natural. That does not make them any less potent to cure or less dangerous when misused. Alternatively, you might want to look at it from the other side: cocaine is quite natural, as is chocolate - I nevertheless would not advise you to feed it to your dog.
That sort of reasoning is on par with the one in the second thread Jeff started, where he explains to the unsuspecting public that eating fast is bad for a dog, because 1. it needs to chew the food into small pieces to be properly digested and 2. that saliva is needed to break it down in the mouth, or the stomach cannot handle it. (I bring up that other thread as I feel it is well suited to establish some further doubt about the health expertise of the poster)
Now, physiologically, this is complete nonsense. First off, commercial dog food already is delivered in such small pieces, that you will rarely find a wild canine consuming anything that small. Canine teeth are not made for chewing, simply for ripping and swallowing (simply check out your teeth and their grinding surfaces on the molars and premolars, and then the knifelike character of the dogs upper 4th premolar and lower 1st molar - the teeth doing the most work). Secondly, humans have salivary amylase which helps break down starches. Dogs however do not. Instead they start digesting starch in their small intestines, where the amylase needed is provided by the pancreas. It is actually widely speculated that dogs have their amylase produced there, and not in their mouth, precisely because canids do wolf down their food. [
] Lastly, dogs work like us in that they need insulin to properly use sugars. Grinding down food into a mash is potentially harmful because it causes repeated insulin shocks, which have been shown to cause diabetes (all this holds for people also btw; it has been shown 1. that repeated insulin shocks vastly increase diabetes risks 2. that you get those insulin shocks not only from eating a bar of chocolate, but also from eathing, for instance, mashed potatoes. Potatoes are almost entirely starch, which is directly transformed into sugars).
If someone nevertheless feels a dog eats too fast, they ought to put their food into a dispenser-kong, where it will only fall out piece by piece. That not only will make the dog eat slowly, it also will provide tons of fun an stimulation.
I am sorry if I had to step on anybody's toes here, but I feel that such completely mixed up epiphanies should not be left standing unopposed. Their potential dangerousness requires, in my view, a response that makes clear in no uncertain terms that a herbal supplement will NOT protect your dog from ticks for instance, and the Lyme disease that might come with it.
A great weekend to everyone [
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