PET HEALTH
Innovation grant pays for machine
Toffee, being held by veterinary master’s student Jen Briens, was receiving a ton of attention on Tuesday from visitors during federal minister Ed Holder’s funding announcement at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon.
SASKATOON — A new high-powered ultrasound on its way to the University of Saskatchewan will allow researchers to look at whether diets of locally grown peas, beans and lentils can help reduce obesity in pet cats and dogs.
Lead researcher Lynn Weber said almost all commercially available dog foods are primarily made up of corn and rice — foods that release sugar quickly and are responsible for “sugar highs” and “sugar crashes” in humans. Diets high in these types of foods have been found to contribute to obesity and type II diabetes.
Weber suspects the same may be true in pets and wants to see how the cardiovascular systems of dogs and cats respond to diets of foods that release sugar more slowly.
Her preliminary research suggested that beagles fed pea-based dog food had healthier hearts than those fed traditional dog chow.
“Our current ultrasound machines weren’t quite sensitive enough to fully detect it in a significant manner, but we think that with the new machine we will be able to actually see that,” Weber said.
Now that the machine is on its way, Weber has expanded her project to study the effects of fava bean- and lentil-based diets as well.
The new machine, priced at $171,766, is funded by a Canadian Foundation for Innovation grant, the federal government announced Tuesday. Three other research projects at the U of S also received funding. In total, 37 universities received $27 million for tools and infrastructure to support research.
In addition to improving the health of pets, Weber said her research also has the potential to benefit the province’s pulse crop industry, which produces peas, beans, lentils and chickpeas.
She noted pet owners spend more than $2 billion on pet food in North America every year.
“It’s not trivial,” she said. “We’re poised to really enter the market in a big way, but we need to have better tools to be able to detect the actual benefits of this.”
Ed Holder, federal minister of state for science and technology, said the project is “great news for Canada.”
“You’re presenting a new opportunity within the global pet food market for Saskatchewan pulse growers — who are responsible for most of Canada’s $3 million annual export sales in pulses — to prosper,” he said.
The new ultrasound will also allow Weber to look at the cardiovascular systems of smaller species, namely fish.
Corn and rice are unhealthy for fish; Weber said most fish food is made up of ground fish, including wild fish, which are becoming increasingly scarce. If lentils and other pulses result in good growth, health and meat quality, they could lead to “a more environmentally sustainable” way of feeding fish, she said.