Royal Canin Nutritional Information

11. Nutritional Information

Focus on: Psyllium Fiber

Botanical Origins

Psyllium is a small annual plant, with low leaves and white flowers, of the plantain genus, which grow in the sandy soils of the Mediterranean basin. One particular variety (Plantago ovata), which comes from India and Pakistan, is traditionally used in phytotherapy to treat digestive problems. Psyllium is also known as Ispabgol. The whole plant is used in food, as well as nutrition and therapy. The young leaves may be consumed in salads or with vegetables.

©National Research Centre for Medicinal and Aromatic Plants.

Seeds Are Rich in Fiber

The word psyllium is derived from the Greek psyllia, meaning flea, which is what the seeds resemble. They are composed of around 57% total fiber, 25% cellulose and 12% soluble fiber, mucilage, which is made of arabinoxylan, an extremely ramified acid.

©R. Hours.

The mucilage in psyllium seeds is especially beneficial. Once it has been isolated, the seed coat (tegument) contains a high mucilage concentration of 25 - 30%.

The particular composition of the tegument means that psyllium seeds can absorb up to ten times their weight in water. When purified psyllium seeds are used, the swelling index is between 70 and 85.

©R. Hours.

Mucilage Regulates Digestive Transit

Psyllium is renowned for its laxative properties. Mucilage behaves like a sponge, absorbing water to swell up and create a viscous gel. Psyllium has an anti-diarrheic effect, by augmenting the viscosity of the intestinal chyme.

In human gastroenterology, psyllium is particularly indicated to:

• Relieve gastrointestinal inflammations
• Treat irritable bowel syndrome
• Help treat constipation

Digestive transit is sometimes slow in sedentary cats due to the lack of physical activity. They often suffer from constipation and digestive problems caused by hairballs. Psyllium has very positive effects on their digestive transit, regulating the advancement of the content of the small intestine and the colon, and the lubrication induced by the psyllium gel facilitates the elimination of feces. Psyllium fiber is only very partially fermented by the bowel flora in the colon and therefore does not alter the consistency of the feces.

Psyllium seeds are traditionally used as appetite suppressors in weight loss diets. Mucilage absorbs water to form a voluminous gel in the stomach.

The fruit of the psyllium is a pod containing two minuscule, flat, oval seeds, that have no odor and scarcely any taste. A thousand seeds weigh less than 2 g. (©Diffomédia/V. de Leval, É. Langellier)

Digestive Problems Associated with the Formation of Hairballs in the Cat’s Digestive Tract

In cats, licking fulfils many different functions:

• It cleans the coat
• It regulates temperature
• It strengthens a bond between animals in the event of mutual grooming
• It helps reduce stress.

A cat that lives indoors spends around 30% of its time grooming (Benjamin, 1976). It is particularly sensitive to the formation of hairballs. (©Y. Lanceau/RC/Birman).

The cat’s tongue is carpeted with conical dermal papillae that act like a brush to remove dead hairs and foreign bodies in the coat. When licking itself, the cat ingests hairs that it subsequently eliminates through the bowels. A Royal Canin study shows that fecal excretion varies between 30 mg and 70 mg of hair/kg of body weight/day (Figure 1). In a period of molting, the quantity of hairs excreted in the feces may be up to 100 mg/kg of body weight/day, which is a daily volume of around 10 cm3 for a 4-kg cat (Tournier et al., 2005).

Figure 53. Correlation between molting and fecal excretion of hairs (results obtained from 24 cats) (Tournier et al., 2005).

The hairs coalesce in the digestive tract to form a ball (trichobezoar), which is very often regurgitated. In some cases however, they may cause digestive problems (Barrs et al., 1999) – vomiting, constipation or intestinal occlusion in the most serious cases. More than half of the veterinarians have had to deal with an intestinal obstruction caused by a hairball and 43% have had to resort to surgery to treat it (Royal Canin survey, 2004).

The formation of hairballs depends on individual factors (connected to the presence of "retention" pockets in the digestive tract), but mostly on environmental factors. Cats that live indoors are more sensitive than others. When the temperature and lighting are fairly steady, they will molt throughout the year. If they have no access to grass and no opportunity to hunt, they will not ingest the ballast that naturally stimulates intestinal transit.

The hairs swallowed by the cat are regurgitated in the form of balls or eliminated through the feces. In the course of one year, a cat may excrete 60 - 120g of hairs, representing a volume of 1.5 - 3 liters.

Key Points to Remember: Nutritional Factors Favoring the Natural Elimination of Hairballs

The natural elimination of hairs may be facilitated by stimulating gastric emptying and intestinal transit. The aim is to prevent the hairs from collecting in the stomach or intestine and forming a ball. This is achieved by increasing the fiber content of the food. This type of diet is especially indicated for cats that live indoors, whose intestinal motility is slowed by the lack of physical activity. Food that activates transit and increases fecal excretion of hairs contains at least 10 - 15% total dietary fiber (Figure 2).

Figure 54. Influence of fibers on fecal excretion of hairs in a 4-week period in 24 cats (Tournier et al., 2005).

Fiber constitutes a very heterogeneous material and several types need to be associated to obtain a synergic effect. While the cellulose and other non-fermentable fibers stimulate intestinal transit, some vegetable sources provide fiber with a much more targeted action:

• The fiber in the psyllium tegument favors fecal excretion in constipated cats
• Fructo-oligosaccharides provide an energy substrate beneficial to the balance of the digestive flora.

Beet pulp has a mixed chemical composition that enables the combination of the benefits of fermentable (on flora) and non-fermentable fiber (on transit).