Menadione Food Additive Question

[Renee Ferrero]

Hello Everyone. I have been treating my 14 year old female tabby Cinnamon for 2 years since being diagnosed with diabetes. Her numbers are under very good control at this point with home testing- in the low 100 range-but it is a constant struggle with diet and the proper wet food options. One of my main questions to the group has to do with a synthetic food additive called menadione sodium bisulfite (a man made vitamin K supplement) that is added to MANY of the good quality wet foods, such as Fancy Feast classics, Avoderm, Weruva canned, etc. that are recommended for diabetic felines. This additive has been claimed to be toxic to pets in certain doses and is banned for use in human products (which leads me to believe that it may have been tested on animals previously in order to be banned for humans). Does anyone have any insight on this additive? There are arguments on both sides and it is very frustrating to know which foods to choose, since the Fancy Feast Classics are very good options since they are low carb and well liked by many of our diabetic kitties.

 

[Larry and Kitties]

Based on Googling it appears that menadione sodium bisulfite is only only approved vit K supplement for pet food and vit K supplement is needed especially for cat food since cat food typically does not contain green leafy veggies and other sources of natural vit K.
menadione sodium bisulfite is not approved for human supplements since a high dose menadione sodium bisulfite can cause problem and humans tend to overdose on supplements. The small does in cat food should not be a problem.
http://www.radiopetlady.com/radio-pet-lady-blog/cat-nutrition/why-is-menadione-in-weruva/

 

[Renee Ferrero]

Thank you so much for your response Larry. I reviewed the link above as well. It is crazy how so many food varieties have this ingredient. Blue Buffalo has recently removed it from its wet food line due to the controversy. It is so hard to know what to do. I just recently stumbled upon a new wet food by Purina called "Muse" and my girl loves it. I may just add it to her rotation and feed no more than one tub a day ( only a 2.1 ounce portion in a tub) and then give her a can of Tiki Cat at nite for her dinner. She also eats a bit of Purina DM dry mixed with a bit of Evo dry. That combination keeps her BS level stable in the low to mid 100's with a little less than 2 units of insulin twice a day.