Advice to Pet Owners Put Your Pets on a GlutenFree Diet



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Miami, FL April 26, 2007 -- Pet owners who want to keep their animals healthy should look for gluten-free products. According to clinical nutritionist Shari Lieberman, PhD, CNS, FACN, buying gluten-free pet food removes the chance the food may be tainted.

So many brands of pet food have been recalled, pet owners may find it difficult to figure out which ones are safe, she said. The easiest thing to do is to look for gluten-free products. And as an extra bonus, their pets will be healthier, too.

Lieberman, author of The Gluten Connection: How Gluten Sensitivity May Be Sabotaging Your Health (Rodale Press, 2007), explains that gluten is not a normal ingredient in a pet'ss diet. Gluten is a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye, she says. Left on their own, dogs and cats do not eat wheat! Gluten is put into their food as a filler. But that filler isn'st healthy for them.

In her book, Lieberman explains that gluten is one of the top causes of flatulence, joint pain, skin disorders and other problems in dogs and cats. That shouldn'st come as a surprise, she says. Dogs and cats are closely related to human beings, genetically speaking, and are susceptible to many of the same types of chronic diseases that we get.

Gluten sensitivity may be affecting more than 30 percent of the American population. The worst type of gluten sensitivity is celiac disease; however, gluten sensitivity causes a number of chronic and serious conditions in people, such as eczema, attention deficit disorder (ADD), lupus, osteoporosis, irritable bowel syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, and diabetes -- to name just a few.

All of these things are caused by the body'ss inability to digest the protein gluten. The only cure is a gluten-free diet, Lieberman emphasizes.

In The Gluten Connection, Lieberman identifies the conditions that gluten can cause or contribute to, which are all backed up by research and case studies, and tells readers how to go live successfully on a gluten-free diet.

The same advice I give to my human patients who suffer from symptoms that cannot be resolved medically, I give to their pets: Go gluten-free. Wheat, barley, and rye are not essential to a human'ss diet, and definitely not to a pet'ss. Going gluten-free is not difficult, and it can improve quality of life.

The Gluten Connection by Shari Lieberman, PhD, CNS, FACN with Linda Segall is available through Rodale Press (www.rodalestore) or through local or online bookstores.





Advice to Pet Owners Put Your Pets on a GlutenFree Diet