Kitty Digestion and how long it takes...

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Carl & Polly & Bob (GA)

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I've been mulling this for weeks. My gut is saying that we're not quite right when it comes down to "how long does it take for carbs to show up after eating?". But I need some other eyes.

General wisdom here is that you'll see boost an hour or two after eating, and then the insulin kicks in to fight the rise, right? Well, in all the reading I have been doing, I can't find a timetable other than it takes 20 hours or so for the food to get from the bowl to the litter box. All the sites explain how it happens, what the stomach, liver, pancreas, small and large intestines do with the the food, but none of them tell you when in the 20 hours each step takes place.

The "food timing" thing is something that everyone talks about, but I wonder if this is just one of those things that "everybody just knows" because they've read it here a million times. We need a vet to 'splain this to us! Here's hoping Dr. Lisa is lurking!

Here's an example:
http://drainameducci.blogspot.com/2012/01/feline-digestive-system.html

It sounds like the "changing the food into sugars" takes place in the small intestine, not in the stomach. If that's the case, then it would seem that the boost from carbs would take a lot longer to hit the kitty than 2 hours or less. The only thing I can think is that the boost doesn't take place then, but later. Maybe many hours later. Maybe what we see in terms of "rise" from eating is not really from the meal just given, but from the meal a cycle ago? I have to go to work in a few minutes, and I'll look again later for a site that gives a timeline. In the meantime, does anyone else have time to "google"???

Carl
 
Carl -

I haven't gone back (with my OCD notes) and added the food thing to my entire SS, but the past couple of weeks I've been logging the types & quantity. I think you'll see, at least where Grayson is concerned, that his food tends to spike/hang around about 4 hours. Where you see the Ocean Whitefish (FFOW) noted, I was consciously looking to see the impact of the type on his BG. In most cases, OW doesn't impact... but I've seen it do it too. Sounds like a great study for a vet student!!!
 
carlinsc said:
Maybe what we see in terms of "rise" from eating is not really from the meal just given, but from the meal a cycle ago?
Click to expand...
I don't have time to research right this minute...I'm in the middle of meds...but human diabetics use a short acting insulin just before a meal. I wouldn't think it's to cover the prior meal. Plus, Marilyn is no longer on a 12/12 schedule; hasn't been for a while. Her shot times are varied, along with her meals, and I still see food spikes after eating. Also, the size of the spike often correlates to the size of the meal just consumed, not the prior meal. I dunno, it doesn't make sense to me...but I say this without having time, right now, to check out the link you provided.
 
Interesting thought, Carl. I'll be following this thread for sure. As you know, I've been wondering about meal placement and amounts and how they relate to the numbers...

Libby
 
Just thinking out loud....
what happens when a cat goes too low....say they are at about 40 and we say...Feed!
so we feed and usually we will see a spike in about 15 or 30 minutes...
so that wouldn't be from early that day...that spike is because we gave them food to bring them up
so why do we say it takes about an hour or 2.....
probably made it worse..sorry
 
Only thing I could find is for humans: transit time is 24-72 hours depending on the food (we all know what corn does! Sorry!!!)/person (mayoclinic)

Diabetics see an increase sometime around +1 and non-diabetics at 30 min, and food tends to last longer in diabetics than in a non-diabetic (livestrong)

Don't know that you could make assumptions from that, but 24 hr human insulins are used as 12 hour insulins in cats because of increased metabolism in the cat....would then food also be metabolized quicker? So you could possibly be looking at 30 minutes or less?

You could run BG curve on a non-diabetic cat to see, but then would those values be different from a diabetic cat as they are with humans?
 
Catannc said:
You could run BG curve on a non-diabetic cat to see, but then would those values be different from a diabetic cat as they are with humans?
Click to expand...

This is an interesting thought. I could do a control test next time I do a curve w/ Grayson - feed/test a healthy guy on the same schedule. It'll be nice to see some double digit numbers for a change!!! :-D I'll see if I can find a willing volunteer - assuming there are FD shrimpies or FD chicken involved, I think I might have to have them draw straws! :lol:
 
Doug N Libby said:
Interesting thought, Carl. I'll be following this thread for sure. As you know, I've been wondering about meal placement and amounts and how they relate to the numbers...

Libby
Click to expand...

Libby, it was actually your recent post about Hershey that made me post this today.

what happens when a cat goes too low....say they are at about 40 and we say...Feed!
so we feed and usually we will see a spike in about 15 or 30 minutes...
so that wouldn't be from early that day...that spike is because we gave them food to bring them up
so why do we say it takes about an hour or 2.....
probably made it worse..sorry
Click to expand...

Denise,
I thought of that too... usually when a cat goes hypo low, we're encouraging either karo, or gravy, right? It makes sense that they would happen faster, since they are liquids, and don't pause long at the stomach before going to the small intestine. We also usually see dry food take longer, and stick around longer BG wise, which makes sense because it would take the stomach longer to turn them into liquids and send them to the intestines.

I guess what perplexes me is :
Why can't I find any info that gives you detailed timing info beyond "it takes 20 hours to make it all the way through the system"?

We see food "show up" an hour after feeding, but how long does it stay around? We can't tell that because an hour or so later, the insulin starts working. How much of the drop to nadir is caused by the insulin, and how much just because the food wore off? And if the food wears off that fast, then what are the intestines doing with it for 16 or more hours? Is some of the food still around to push the BG up after nadir, so the rise isn't just caused by the insulin petering out, but by continued absorption of glucose from the intestines and the partially digested food?

I'll be out googling...

Carl
 
Another motivation, I suppose, I alluded to in the first post. There are a lot of "things" on the board that are said, and repeated often. But some of them just seem to be repeated often "just because". When you try to discover where that concept came from, you can't. It's just always been there.

One good example. We tell people all the time to "not shoot if kitty doesn't eat well", right? Well, there's a really interesting Think Tank post that contends that this advice is actually bad advice.
http://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=9070
I read it one day and thought "hmmm, that makes really good sense to me". But yet I've continued to hand out "don't shoot if kitty doesn't eat" to a lot of people, and it may actually be bad advice. But it's something that just about everybody says, especially to new members on Health. What if it ain't so?

I suppose I'm just questioning myself and some of the advice I dole out. I don't want to be telling people something that isn't right, and then find out it didn't work because it wasn't right.

Carl
 
http://www.petcaregt.com/catcare/catdigestivesystem.html

Digestion begins when food enters your cat's mouth. The tongue positions the food for the shredding and tearing action of the teeth and mixes the food with the saliva to start the digestion of carbohydrates.
Click to expand...

That may explain why high carb hits faster, and zero carbs doesn't seem to?

The stomach is the chief active partner in the digestive system, churning food and making it acceptable for the intestines. When you’re pet stomach is full of food (or full of gas), it may feel like a doughy bag (feel behind the last rib on the left side). A kitten's stomach can distend considerably after a meal, and this is not necessarily a sign of disease or worms.

The liver is the largest organ in your pet's body, but it is located so that it cannot be palpated well in the normal cat. It nestles under the rib cage, probably because it has hundreds of jobs to do and can't be interrupted. The liver makes the proteins that provide energy for your cat's graceful leaps, manufactures the clotting agents that stop the bleeding of a cut, and is very important in tat and sugar metabolism. In addition, the liver is the great detoxifier purifying toxins and drugs in your cat's system and it recycles the bodies of dead red blood cells.

Some of its products are used to make new red blood cells; others are used to make bile, the green digestive juice stored in the gall bladder that, at mealtime, is released to the intestine through the bile duct to help break large fat molecules into smaller ones. Liver disease or the rapid destruction of red blood cells will release large amounts of bile into the bloodstream, producing jaundice and staining the eyes, gums, and skin yellow.

The pancreas resides behind your cat's stomach and also can't be palpated easily. The first job that the pancreas undertakes is to neutralize the acids in the soupy gruel that the stomach passes on to the intestines. These acids are no laughing matter; they could inflict serious damage to the intestines if not neutralized. Your cat's pancreas also produces an impressive array of enzymes that are important in sugar, fat, and protein digestion. If the pancreas becomes inflamed as in pancreatitis, some of these enzymes leak from the cells into the bloodstream. The pancreas is best known, however, for its manufacture of insulin, which ensures that all your pet's cells get glucose, a simple sugar, for their energy needs.

All nutrients are absorbed in the small intestine, which then passes them to the bloodstream and lymphatic systems. By gently grasping the abdomen between the thumb and fingers, you may feel the small intestine as a slippery tube. The last stop on the way is the large intestine, where water is extracted for your pet's use and the feces (the stool) become firmer. You may be able to feel the large intestine by gently palpating high in the posterior abdomen. Any problems in this organ can produce diarrhea, sometimes mixed with blood or mucus.

All indigestible material has to leave the body by way of the anus. The entire trip takes about twenty hours. Your pet's normal feces should be firm and brown in color. If the feces are loose, black, clay-colored. bloody; are streaked with mucus; have a foul odor; or are extremely large in volume.
Click to expand...

still nothing about timing, though...

Carl
 
Lu, if you try that mini curve you still have some relatives of Grayson around? Might be best to compare to a cat with as much genetic similarity as possible.

Which made me think of something else: if someone else joins who is doing a diet change without insulin wouldn't it be interesting to get curves off a diabetic cat without the juice to mask what the numbers are doing? And could that then be used to help in dosing for that cat? Like say with the dose not being enough, josie and hershey today for examples. If you knew that at +2 food should spike numbers by x amount and instead you got a lesser y amount, could you use that to guess how far you were off of a dose that held them flat? Tired and probably talking out my behind....
 
I must know how to read "behind-speak" then!

Seeing what you've said in the thread, here's something I thought about.

I think testing a diabetic, but not on insulin yet kitty would be useful. I also think testing a non-diabetic would be too. But...
I wondering if the differences in their systems would cloud the picture? Like a never-diabetic cat.... everything is working as designed, the organs all do their thing naturally, and I'm wondering if you would see less fluctuation in BG just because of that? Like, food goes in, and things just happen like they are supposed to with regard to timing. Maybe the pancreas in a healthy cat has a head start on things that a diabetic cat wouldn't have? I dunno, my behind is talking a lot today too!

Carl
 
http://voices.yahoo.com/an-overview-feline-digestive-7113210.html

While food is inside the small intestine, it is further processed by other organs in the body. The pancreas and the gallbladder both send fluids and enzymes through the pancreatic ducts that attach to the small intestine. These fluids and enzymes mix the food and further digest it. So, by the time this food reaches the middle intestine, the nutrients are ready to be absorbed.
Click to expand...

OK, at least we know that the absorption takes place from the middle portion of the small intestine, so the food needs to go that far to get "used".

Carl
 
I have several willing participants for the control group, and had thought about using one of Grayson's siblings too... although we would have to do the food change and let her adjust to that for a week or so, I would think before starting. Need to get my meter issue resolved first... but I'm sure we can find someone WILLING TO TOLERATE Fancy Feast! Anyone know of a good sale??? These kids are gonna eat me outa house & home! :lol: ... like termites!
 
carlinsc said:
Another motivation, I suppose, I alluded to in the first post. There are a lot of "things" on the board that are said, and repeated often. But some of them just seem to be repeated often "just because". When you try to discover where that concept came from, you can't. It's just always been there.

One good example. We tell people all the time to "not shoot if kitty doesn't eat well", right? Well, there's a really interesting Think Tank post that contends that this advice is actually bad advice.
http://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=9070
I read it one day and thought "hmmm, that makes really good sense to me". But yet I've continued to hand out "don't shoot if kitty doesn't eat" to a lot of people, and it may actually be bad advice. But it's something that just about everybody says, especially to new members on Health. What if it ain't so?

I suppose I'm just questioning myself and some of the advice I dole out. I don't want to be telling people something that isn't right, and then find out it didn't work because it wasn't right.

Carl
Click to expand...


What a great thread this is.

Carl I think you're right about the advise being repeated. I think that the advise to not shoot if kitty wasn't eating well started with the harsher insulins being used back when, like Vetsulin, Humulin etc. Those insulins hit hard and fast and were gone in 6 to 8 hours so the kitty needed to have food in their tummy at shot time.
 
carlinsc said:
I think testing a diabetic, but not on insulin yet kitty would be useful. I also think testing a non-diabetic would be too. But...
I wondering if the differences in their systems would cloud the picture? Like a never-diabetic cat.... everything is working as designed, the organs all do their thing naturally, and I'm wondering if you would see less fluctuation in BG just because of that?
Click to expand...

Regarding Humans...

Diabetic Vs. Non-Diabetic
Your blood glucose levels begin to rise within 15 minutes after you start eating a meal and, depending on the type of food and the size of the meal, will peak within around 30 to 45 minutes, says Jennie Brandt, Ph.D., author of "The New Glucose Revolution What Makes My Blood Glucose Go Up . . . and Down?" By three to four hours after your meal, your blood sugar should be back down to the level it was before you started eating. This is known as the fasting level. If you are diabetic, you can expect your blood sugar level to peak a bit later, about an hour after you start eating, and to take longer to return to a fasting level.
Click to expand...

http://www.livestrong.com/article/448193-how-long-after-eating-does-blood-sugar-peak/#ixzz1qdjc1Tbz
 
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