Ailments of the musculoskeletal system

Continued from last week

Nutritional effects on the bones

Over the millennia of domestication of the dog and the cat, their diets have undergone immense changes. I would believe that in the pre-domestication days, dogs and cats would have eaten an almost pure meat diet. Nowadays, dogs and cat practically eat out of the same ‘pot‘ as their human masters. That is not necessarily the best diet, not lastly because of the many spices we humans consume and which can cause allergic reactions in animals. But that’s another story – to be told on another occasion. Also I should mention that before pet nutrition became a real respected discipline of science, commercial pet food manufactures without any great research effort – used to produce plain meat/all meat preparations for over-the-counter sale. That caused many nutritionally based ailments.

You remember that last week we said that either a deficiency of calcium or an excess of phosphrous has the resulting effect of stimulating parathyroid hormone production in the parathyroid glands. This, in turn,