Original post: July 23, 2010
Money and time saved feeding convenient less expensive nutrition is sure to be spent in multiples on veterinary bills and medical care as your pet ages. As our pets age antioxidant production in their cells declines making it more difficult for them to tolerate adversity; and this includes their ability to tolerate poor nutrition and illness. The obvious solution is to choose the best quality nourishment possible from puppyhood; food that has not been processed or at least preserves the most nutrient activity possible. However, this is still not enough health insurance for our senior pets.
Those age-related ailments in your senior are not likely age-related based on what we know today. All diseases are characterised by an underlying inflammation. This inflammation can be advanced and even prevented by dietary factors; primarily fatty acids and antioxidants or oxidation. Processed, oxidized foods contribute to this underlying inflammation to reduce your pet’s ability to tolerate disease. It also advances your pet’s biological age.
Processed food contributes to that underlying (subclinical) inflammation in two ways: one way is the damaged omega fatty acid nutrients which are easily oxidized by processing. In their whole and biologically active forms, these delicate molecules can help manage inflammation. In their damaged state they contribute to uncontrolled oxidation and inflammation. The other way processed foods contribute to inflammation is through the deficiency of active antioxidants which are also destroyed during the processing. Biologically active antioxidants from whole fresh food would otherwise help defuse elevated oxidation and inflammation. They are natural protectors and cell preservers which are unavailable to the desperate cells if the majority of the diet is processed.
" Oxidized food and the deactivated nourishment it supplies reduce longevity and life quality. The uncontrolled inflammation that ripples out to the periphery of the body because of this damaged food chemistry erodes cells and tissues through its wave-like action. By improving antioxidant and fatty acid status in the cells inflammatory activity is better controlled; premature aging is circumvented.
This is accomplished rather effortlessly through changes in diet, improved fatty acid intake and enhanced vitamin, mineral and antioxidant supplementation. Improvements in energy, recovery from daily physical work and exercise, skin tone and coat lustre and thickness, general strength and endurance, vigour and happiness are rather sudden when supplementation is administered correctly. These visible improvements are indications of much deeper metabolic improvement.
Aging is not a function of time. It is simply a function of biological wear and tear. Uncontrolled inflammation accelerates that wear and tear by preventing the natural restorative processes from doing their wonderful work in your young vigorous pet. The result is a pet that ages before his or her time. Our pets’ cells are equipped with maintenance systems which can become sluggish with age just like our own can. More accurately, these gene-coded systems can become inhibited by unnatural levels of oxidation. Oxidation and inflammation go hand-in-hand so these processes simply both interfere with natural regeneration and maintenance if they are out of balance.
Supplementation with a balanced and biologically active fatty acid product can help attain inflammatory control and improved state of health. Concurrent supplementation with the vitamins and minerals that are essential cofactors the cells need to process these fats internally helps guide the fats down the right cellular paths. A supplemental supply of phytoantioxidants further improves the cell’s ability to use and preserve these fatty acids in their active forms in the body by helping control oxidation.
Individually these different categories of nutrition can improve state of health when supplemented but they really deliver a formidable impact when they are supplemented together since they depend on each other for maximum biological activity. Put life back in to your pet’s food; supplement with a species-specific fatty acid blend and a vitamin, mineral phytoantioxidant accompaniment.