Blue Buffalo, a pet food manufacturer headquartered in Wilton, Connecticut, announced a recall due to illnesses in dogs that was traced to the use of a variety of Blue Buffalo dog food. In this Letter from The Blue Buffalo Company they try to minimize the issue, as most companies would, and say While the potential of increased Vitamin D presents no serious health risk, and any negative reaction to these products has been confined to a very small segment of the canine population who appear to be sensitive to higher levels of Vitamin D. First of all, vitamin D hypervitaminosis results in hypercalcemia, which can lead to cardiac arrest and death, and second, how many animals are suffering from the effects of being fed these excess levels of vitamin
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Symptoms included an increased thirst and urination, weight loss, loss of appetite and signs of kidney damage. Samples were sent to the Diagnostic Center for Population and Animal Health (DCPAH) at Michigan State University and a series of 16 test results from dogs were indicative of hypercalcemia related to excessive intake of vitamin D. This is a rather uncommon occurrence that can be linked to excessive dietary intake of vitamin D or ingestion of rodenticide containing vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) as the principal ingredient. Endocrinologists soon found a common factor: all 16 dogs whose samples were tested had very high levels of vitamin D in their blood and were being fed Blue Buffalo Wilderness …show more content…
Synthetic vitamins are more closely related to drugs and have more of a drug effect on the body. They can also be dangerous, as we have seen here. It would be very difficult to create hypervitaminosis in the body from a natural source because the body can easily digest, absorb and metabolize a natural substance and then eliminate what is not used. However, with synthetics, hypervitaminosis can be created quite easily, especially with a fat-soluble vitamin like vitamin D. There is a report on the test effects of vitamin D in 500 human pregnancy cases. All the women given synthetic vitamin D developed calcified and diseased kidneys while women given natural vitamin D had no observable changes in the
Symptoms included an increased thirst and urination, weight loss, loss of appetite and signs of kidney damage. Samples were sent to the Diagnostic Center for Population and Animal Health (DCPAH) at Michigan State University and a series of 16 test results from dogs were indicative of hypercalcemia related to excessive intake of vitamin D. This is a rather uncommon occurrence that can be linked to excessive dietary intake of vitamin D or ingestion of rodenticide containing vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) as the principal ingredient. Endocrinologists soon found a common factor: all 16 dogs whose samples were tested had very high levels of vitamin D in their blood and were being fed Blue Buffalo Wilderness …show more content…
Synthetic vitamins are more closely related to drugs and have more of a drug effect on the body. They can also be dangerous, as we have seen here. It would be very difficult to create hypervitaminosis in the body from a natural source because the body can easily digest, absorb and metabolize a natural substance and then eliminate what is not used. However, with synthetics, hypervitaminosis can be created quite easily, especially with a fat-soluble vitamin like vitamin D. There is a report on the test effects of vitamin D in 500 human pregnancy cases. All the women given synthetic vitamin D developed calcified and diseased kidneys while women given natural vitamin D had no observable changes in the