Hello, it's Anthony Chadwick from the Webinarett welcoming you to another episode of Vet Chat. Very, fortunate today to have Georgia Woodsley on the line, and Georgia is a veterinary nurse working at Liverpool University, working with my fellow Liverpudlian, or at least LFC supporter, Alex German. And so it'd be great to know a little bit more about you, Georgia, and I'm, I'm really excited to, to talk about nutrition cos it was always one of my passions when I was in practise.
I know there's always a, a couple of thorny issues, so I think we can have a, a good chat about some of the the thorny issues of the day. Yeah, hello there. Yes, there are many issues, especially, with nutrition, and, that's very much where I find myself, these days.
So, I work at the University of Liverpool, at the weight management clinic, so predominantly, I'm dealing with those pets with obesity. But I also speak to a lot of pet owners who want to feed all sorts of different types of diet. And there are many issues there too.
Great, and obviously being at the university for a little while, but before that, definitely worked in practise, so you kind of understand it from both sides, from the more sort of specialist referral hospital, but also from the, the first opinion practise as well. Yes, absolutely. So I started off training in a mixed practise, and, we had a little hospital then, and then moved on to a slightly bigger hospital, with a referral centre also.
But then for the few years before I came to Liverpool, I was head nurse of the branch practise, first opinion practise, and, yeah, so these sort of conversations were, daily about nutrition. I think it's so important to have that a wide range of experience. I, I did it myself with my own practise, I had a first opinion practise.
I saw a lot of dermatology cases there, but I also did dermatology referrals, and sometimes I think one of the blessings I had with referral was just simply having more time because actually obesity is a complex problem, trying to do that in a 5 minute, 10 minute consult is. It's pretty nigh on impossible, isn't it? Yes, absolutely.
I mean, I think in practise, when I was in first opinion practise, if I could have half an hour, that would have been great. At, at a specialist level, at a referral level, we now spend around 4 hours with our new cases. So, yeah, time really is very tight in general practise, it can be very difficult to work at these cases, simply because of the time constraints.
I remember Georgia as as a student, a long, long time ago I used to see practise in a, a lovely practise up in in Lancashire. And at the time the the diet of choice was Leo, obesity diet, and they always knew when I'd been in the practise because I, I, I've, I've always kind of tried to look at veterinary medicine medicine as a unholistic thing. If you've got a dog with arthritis.
But he's also very overweight, if you don't sort his, his weight problem, then you're never really gonna sort his arthritis problem. And they always knew when I'd been cos suddenly the the Leo obesity diet would fly out of the . Out of the practise, but obviously, you know, we're still talking about this problem 35 years later and if anything, you know, the problem seems to be getting bigger.
Why is that? So from an obesity point of view, I think we have a sort of perfect storm, really, we know that rates in humans are going up and it's because we live in that obesity. Environment, you know, foods that are very high in calories, very available to us.
And then it's, also about how we live our lives, how we include our pets within our life. We all celebrate with food as humans, and, you know, a lot of it is wanting to include our pets in that also. But it, it's sort of, it's a very big and varied picture because there's also a lot of, sort of examples that are maybe not the best.
So people don't know what's normal. They don't know that their pet may have a problem. Sources of information are difficult to find.
So, yeah, there's an awful lot of contributory, factors that are going into it, but we know it is most certainly getting worse, and that is very, very worrying for everybody, I think. It's, it's, probably more difficult, obviously in humans we can have such a broad spectrum of a diet. We in lockdown, thankfully got my wife, before lockdown really happened, we'd taken on the gusto meals, which are very sort of fresh ingredients that you have to prepare yourself, not very processed, obviously cooking that up and .
I think spending time preparing your food rather than having to just place it in an oven and then it's done. It's processed. This is where we're seeing all the problems with diabetes and things.
Do you think, you know, obviously in, in animals we tend to, to feed more processed diets because obviously they're prepared and they're very well balanced. Is this perhaps some of the reasons why there's been also a bit of a revolution for people thinking about natural feeding, raw feeding, unprocessed food, but you know, there are obviously issues with going down that route as well, aren't there? Yeah, I think so.
I think we are all looking towards doing that, having less processed food, you know, trying to lead that healthier lifestyle. And I think we should also maybe add sustainability in here too, because I think we're all becoming much more aware that the way that we're currently eating and feeding our pets is probably not sustainable in the long term. So yeah, I think it's trying to look at different options, thinking, could I be doing something better, is what I'm doing right or isn't it right?
But yes, some of these decisions can come with consequences and other problems of their own. So yeah, it's a bit of a minefield really. I love that word that you used there, Georgia.
We, we've been doing a lot of the podcasts around sustainability. It's one of my passions as well. And you know, we have to do it, sustainability for humans, for pets, obviously also for the environment as well, don't we?
So it's it's a really important area. If we move into. You know, talking about raw diets, you know, again, I saw my practise 11 years ago, even at that time there was, you know, some evidence that raw diets were fed.
You know, I was never a big fan then I always worried about the. The nutritional value, but also, you know, how clean it was, you know, how likely there were to be, you know, pathogens in there. But also, you know, particularly, I was always very scared about bones and diet because bones can get stuck in all sorts of different places.
I mean, how is the. The raw diet market evolved and you know, are there good examples or is it sort of across the board an area that as vets we should continue to be You know, dubious about I suppose is the best word. Yeah, I mean, I think I remember the first sort of clients with, pets that were fed a raw meat-based diet 20 years ago when I, when I sort of first started nursing.
And it certainly has gained in popularity, over the last 20 years. I think most of us now will see, patients that are fed a raw meat-based diet in practise. I think it'd be quite unusual for anyone that isn't seeing that.
I think it's partly it's that looking for alternatives, partly worrying about in specific ingredients, that are within commercial pet foods, and there have been some notable problems in commercial pet foods that people are understandably scared about. And although they are in the vast minority, you can sort of empathise with that, if, if people are worried about it. So the, there's sort of many reasons why I think also the more popular it becomes, the more popular it becomes, because people see other people doing it.
The dog is fine, you know, will mine be fine on that too. And, you know, advice is given from all different sources, not just veterinary advice. It's from friends, breeders, groomers, people at the park, you know, and some of that advice will be more reliable than others, unfortunately.
I think in, you know, obviously animals are robust, you know, dogs and cats are robust, so as people are, you know, we can, we can be on pretty poor diets but actually do OK for quite a long time before, you know, something like diabetes. You know, comes up, so it, it's, it's probably difficult to, and of course the diets are very diverse. Tell me a little bit about maybe some of the science behind why we as vets are a bit dubious about.
You know, about raw diets. Well, I think that there is, there's two main concerns, and it revolves around nutritional adequacy of these diets, but, and pathogen control. And so if we think about, the nutritional side for a start, there is no evidence to say that, a raw meat-based diet is nutritionally better than a commercially manufactured diet.
And consistently when these diets are tested, and many have been over many studies now, they are frequently sort of 90% and upwards found to be nutritionally inadequate. So as you say, for an adult dog, may not be a problem, or at least not for a very, very long time, certainly concerns me far more in growth because we will see those deficiencies coming through much quicker and so that would be much more of a concern for me. And then it's also nutrition adequacies, as you say, take a very long time to become apparent, and by that point it may well be too late to be doing something about it.
So nutritional adequacy is certainly one huge concern. The other really big concern, and we should be probably thinking about this in a one health perspective, is the pathogen risk. So thinking about parasites and bacteria, multi-drug resistant bacteria that are being found in these types of diet, these are, these are bad news and that have been documented fatalities, you know, in people, who have, who have got these things from, from their pet's food.
The other thing that's coming out is that, and work is ongoing, certainly in this is how you can actually eradicate some of these pathogens. So it used to be, well, if we just freeze these foods, then the perception is that that makes them safe. Well, that actually isn't true.
And from a parasite point of view, yes, you might kill some parasites. But apart from, Campylobacter, most bacteria are only just, are only paused during freezing. And then they kind of have a bit of a party as it all warms up, but that bacterial growth then accelerates really high in that, in that thawing process.
So we know that those pathogens are in the food, and then we also know that it's very difficult to keep the environment clear and clean of those pathogens. And there was a study looking particularly at salmonella. And they inoculated food bowls and they were sort of looking at different methods of cleaning them, and you can't clean salmonella with soap and water from a dog bowl, you can't even clean it in the dishwasher.
You essentially have to soak it in bleach before you actually get rid. Of that salmonella, and I think I, it worries me that pet owners aren't going to go to the lengths and the extent, to keep those pathogens under control. And if they have an at risk individual within their home, then that is very, very concerning, for me.
And I would, I suppose from my point of view, I would hate to be recommending that diet that then caused harm to either the pet or the pet owner. So, Yeah, nutrition adequacy and pathogens, those are the two big concerns I think here. How do you approach it, you know, it's, it's difficult, isn't it?
Often there is this, misguided trust in, in, in breeders where, you know, the breeder or, or somebody has put the animal on the diet. There's no visible signs of any problems. But yet, you know, we're aware that there may be a problem.
Some people can be quite evangelical about about diets as well, you're seeing people coming in, obviously into your, into your clinics as well. Is there a way that we should approach that to obviously be the advocate for the pet, but also at the same time not lose the relationship with the owner. It's a, it's a balancing act, isn't it?
It is, and I think this is about having respect for the, the owner and their choices. It's probably much more about asking questions, seeing where they're coming from, trying to empathise with those reasons, because usually you can, and then trying to provide education in some way, rather than dictating, because if you say you are wrong, you must do what I say, but it's much more likely to really entrench somebody in those ideas are probably much more likely to hold onto them. So it's trying to sort of present what we currently know, what current evidence there is for these concerns, saying that we don't know everything yet.
There's still so much more work that needs to be done before we have all the answers, but kind of based on what we know already, express those concerns. And so at the very least, an owner can have an informed, make that informed decision, you know, in full awareness of the risks and maybe therefore how to mitigate some of those risks as far as they possibly can. And I think it's working with pet owners in that way to make little changes hopefully rather than say I'm not dealing with you because you feedX diet or you know, that sort of thing.
I, I, I think it's a a gentler approach is necessary to not alienate them. Keep the channels open. Yeah.
Obviously interesting, you know, you're working with Alex German at at the university, so obviously seeing a lot of gastrointestinal cases as well. And we know that allergy and and food intolerance can can be a problem. Is, is that where, you know, we can look at some diets that are unusual diets as as potential sources.
I'm thinking particularly going back to that sustainability issue, something that really came sort of full circle with me in my sort of sustainability journey and looking at, some of the, if you like, pests in the environment, and I've always remembered deer from my days of as a youth and of Bambi, but of course we do see a lot of deer causing damage. In the environment, is this becoming a, a diet that could be used at, you know, more in food trials. And then of course we've got some of the great diets like Royal Cannon hypologenic, that's actually made of feather.
I mean, that is such a great circular economy product, isn't it, because we're, we're thinking very sort of laterally about a product that is a byproduct that would be wasted, but we've actually found a use for it, so you think? That there's maybe a a way within our food industry that we can become more efficient from a, from a sustainability perspective as well and you know, maybe there's a couple of examples. Yeah, I, I definitely do, and then I think, you know, if we are going to be slaughtering these animals for whatever reason, for whichever food chain they're going to be going into.
We shouldn't waste any of them at all. And if they can be used, like in the anaergenic, with the, with the feather protein and that sort of thing, we should absolutely do that. And I think the food industry is getting better at turning some of those products that, people would perceive as being fairly distasteful, back into their pet foods because they can be highly nutritious.
And that's really, really important. It to be using those very nutritious parts of the animal that, you know, isn't the chicken breast or, you know, that sort of thing. But, the perception is from some pet owners is they don't want to be feeding those types of, those types of ingredients.
It's, you have different fractions and different opinions from all sides. It's all, it's part of the problem, actually. Perhaps finally, with the Disclaimer, I've been very interested, in fact, I've invested in one of the insect pet foods.
Is that, is that something that you're beginning to see, being talked about in practise? And again, I love that whole concept of often they're being fed on waste food, so that food would have been thrown away, instead it's creating insect protein, something that you're starting to see and and look at at the university. It's not something necessarily we're looking at so much at the university, but certainly my awareness of these brands now, producing insect-based protein foods is, is, it's becoming much more frequent.
And I think this, we will see an explosion of these types of diets. Well, I hope so anyway, in the next Few years, because, yes, from a sustainability point of view, you know, the bugs are coming, you know, but I think we kind of have to be all right with that. For people as well, we have to accept that we probably can't continue to consume meat as we are doing.
We are also gonna have to look, look for those bug burgers and, and that sort of thing for ourselves. So, yes, certainly. I'm very, very pleased to see these, these types of products, come in on the market.
And I suppose going back full circle to where we started with obesity, diets like that usually made by the companies are well balanced, if you feed the right amounts, then the, the animals shouldn't put on weight. It is really those little tidbits I always used to say, you know, they look very small, but they're usually packed with calories and I think this is. Our problem as humans, but also with pets that very palatable food, palatable food that cats and dogs like to eat is often full of calories, isn't it?
Absolutely, well, the things that taste good are high in fat and high in protein, and you know, both those two things together make something very, very palatable. And yes, I would totally agree, it's very rarely just what's going in the bowl that's causing the issue. It's all the things that don't go in the.
That are being fed that lead to the obesity. So even if you're getting the main meals right, we can still be going very, very haywire with, the other stuff that's happening around, retreats and leftovers, that sort of thing. Georgia, to finish maybe top 3 tips, an overweight dog, comes into your practise, what are the three things that you think are really crucial that vets and nurses should be.
Talking to clients about to perhaps make it more likely that they're gonna have a success with that client and that pet. So I only get 3, OK. So the first thing I think, if they have obesity, we need the correct diet.
We need a diet that's been, formulated to be safe during weight loss. You can't just go cutting any old diet, you will end up with a nutrient deficiency, so it has to be choosing the correct diet. The second thing I would say is making sure that the correct amount of that diet is being fed and probably the third thing is weighing the pet regularly.
But I would also wanna, I wanna sort of 3.5 things. I would also say you have to deal with those.
There's other things that are coming along as well as the food, as I said, it's not just what goes in the bowl, it's everything. So yeah, 3 and a bit things. And I suppose, as you say, actually weighing the food as well to make sure we've got the right weight and.
If they're on a diet, just halving the amount usually doesn't work, does it, unfortunately. No, well, they're going to be very hungry if you do that, and you're depriving them of nutrients, so you, you have to use something that is safe, for weight loss. All, yeah.
Yeah. Georgia, thank you so much. I always love talking about nutrition.
It was one of the areas that I, I loved speaking about when I was in practise. So thank you so much and good luck with those those portly pooches. Thank you.
