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As practitioners, we realise that appropriate nutrition for gastrointestinal conditions is part of the mainstay of management, but which Hill’s diet should you choose for which condition?
Types of gastrointestinal diets
There are four main types of gastrointestinal diets:
• Highly digestible (Hill’s Prescription Diet i/d now available in NEW Prescription Diet i/d Puppy & Kitten food)
• Increased fibre (Hill’s Prescription Diet Gastrointestinal Biome and Prescription Diet w/d)
• Low fat (Hill’s Prescription Diet i/d Low Fat Canine and Prescription Diet z/d Low Fat Canine)
• Low allergen
– Hydrolysed protein (Hill’s Prescription Diet z/d (hydrolysed chicken protein) and Prescription Diet z/d Low Fat (hydrolysed soy protein))
– Novel protein (Hill’s Prescription Diet Derm Complete and Hill’s Prescription Diet Derm Complete Puppy with single intact animal protein source (egg))
The first question you need to ask is:
Is the diarrhoea small bowel or large bowel?
It’s handy to first ascertain whether your patient has primarily small or large bowel signs. Some patients will have a mix of both small and large bowel diarrhoea, in which case you will need to experiment to determine the best diet.
Small bowel disorders
You may wish to choose a nutritional option which is low fat (dog), highly digestible, or a novel/hydrolysed protein, depending on the condition. Many Hill’s foods now contain Hill’s ActivBiome+ Digestion Technology, a special blend of prebiotic ingredients that have been shown to activate a pet’s unique gut microbiome.
• Acute enteritis and gastroenteritis
Typically, start with a highly digestible diet unless underlying food allergy or pancreatitis is suspected (Cave, 2020). These patients may require small, frequent meals. For acute diarrhoea, dietary indiscretions or recovery from surgery, we recommend Prescription Diet i/d. It is highly digestible, making it easier for the patient to absorb the nutrients, reducing the feeding volume and meaning less ‘residue’ is left in the GI tract for elimination. Additionally it contains added B complex vitamins and electrolytes to help replace losses through vomiting and diarrhoea.
• Food Responsive Chronic Enteropathy
This condition may result from an allergic reaction to certain dietary proteins and often responds to diet change alone. We want to limit the amount of undigested protein in the gastrointestinal tract able to provoke an allergic reaction and avoid common food allergens. We recommend choosing a diet with a hydrolysed protein (e.g. Prescription Diet z/d, or z/d Low Fat) (Davenport, 2010).
For fibre responsive enteropathies, Prescription Diet Gastrointestinal Biome makes an excellent choice.
• Acute pancreatitis, exocrine pancreatic insufficiency or lymphangiectasia
For dogs we typically want to feed something that is low in fat and highly digestible, so Prescription Diet i/d Low Fat makes a great option, with a fat content of less than 10% on a dry matter basis (Davenport, 2010). Another option is Prescription Diet z/d Low Fat which has comparable fat levels to i/d Low Fat.
Large Intestinal Disorders
Patients with primarily large bowel signs may respond better to a higher fibre diet (Davenport, 2010). Options may include a novel or hydrolysed protein diet or a highly digestible diet.
• Colitis
Prescription Diet Gastrointestinal Biome is an excellent choice for patients with colitis, antibiotic responsive diarrhoea, steroid responsive diarrhoea, fibre responsive enteropathies, infectious diarrhoea or patients with suspected dysbiosis. Gastrointestinal Biome has demonstrated clinical results in cats with constipation or diarrhoea (Wernimont, 2020) and dogs with diarrhoea (Fritsch, 2019) in as little as 24 hours.
Length of food trial
Patients with gastrointestinal signs typically respond to a food trial within 2-4 weeks. If you are not seeing results within that period you can try another dietary option (Roudebush, 2010).
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