Pets and Vitamin E

Pets and Vitamin E, does your dog or cat actually need this vitamin? Not only do they need this vitamin, it is perhaps one of the most important vitamin supplements you could give to your pet. It is so powerful, that many people refer to this vitamin as a wonder vitamin for both your cat and your dog.

However, the very food you may be feeding them may be causing a Vitamin E deficiency in their diet. Vitamin E is one of the most natural antioxidants found in nature, as it is a fat and soluble vitamin that belongs to the tocopherol family of vitamins. A tocopherol is any of the fat soluble vitamins that contain this ingredient, especially alpha-tocopherals that are found mainly in plant leaves, wheat germ oil, and milk.

The major function of vitamin E is to serve your pets body as a chain breaking antioxidant that protects cells and cellular membranes against free radical damages. It is referred to as an antioxidant primarily because it fights the daily battle against oxidation within you pet's body.

Oxidation is a chemical process that occurs when a material of a compound combines with oxygen, and as a result of this process, that material or compound losses a few of its electrons. Both burning and rusting are examples of oxidation, but they occur at very different speeds.

Redox, which is the word coined to define oxidation reduction or reactions, are those reactions which atoms are changed and or altered. Oxidation can therefore basically be summed up by the loss of an electron by an atom, a molecule, or an ion.

Fruit that spoils, cars that rust, are all like examples of this process, just as aging in your pet or some diseases are, basically because your pet is slowing losing parts of their cellular structure, or essentially rusting or slowing burning away.

Vitamin E helps to dramatically slow the process and to keep the much needed oxygen in your pet's cellular structure. As important as oxygen is, however, it can also be counter productive when it produces free radicals, which can cause damage internally to your pet. As an antioxidant, Vitamin E assists with balancing both processes.

In your pet's commercial pet food, vitamin E is added primarily to prevent the oxidation of fatty acids which leads to rancidity, which is the developing of unpleasant flavors in these oils as a result of the oxidation. The process does accomplish this because it essentially neutralizes the free radicals.

However, what most pet owners do not know is that in accomplishing this process, most all of the vitamin E is used up. As a result of this increases in the amount of fatty acids in your pets diet, especially in they are unsaturated which is what most commercial foods are, it must be accompanied by an equal amount of vitamin E, and results in your pet requiring more of the vitamin.

If your pet is fed a pet food that may have been stored for an extended period of time or has been supplemented with large quantities of unsaturated fatty acids, the food that you are feeding them may actually be causing a Vitamin E deficiency in your pet if you are not supplementing your pet with additional amounts of this nutrient.

How long has the food that you are feeding your pet today been stored? Can anyone actually answer that question with certainty?

This wonder vitamin not only helps in the oxidation processes, it does assists in many other extremely important functions for your dog or your cat. Vitamin E is essential for healing diseases in the circulatory system including both heart tachycardia, which is a rapid heart beat, and arteriosclerosis, which is a condition where the artery walls of your pet, is thickened with plague.

This vitamin of many benefits also helps your pet in promoting fertility, helps in preventing cataracts, especially in dogs, slows the aging process as it slows down the burning affect in their body, and assists in the wound healing processes. t also is a huge boost to their immune system and as a result protects their bodies against the several pollutants they face daily as well as protecting against cancer. This vitamin is extremely important if you pet is around second hand smoke.

In cats, this wonder vitamin helps to prevent steatitis, also referred to as yellow fat disease, a disorder that inflames the adipose tissue and the deployment of wax pigments in between the layers of adipose tissues.

In dogs, especially working dogs, it increases endurance and boosts their muscle development and growth. It also helps in dissolving tumors and reliving posterior cramps and disc problems your dogs will all encounter as they rust and age.

The dosages of how much additional Vitamin E you should give your pet will vary and should be discussed with your veterinarian, but there is one thing for certain. Every dog and cat needs additional supplements of this wonder vitamin in their diet.

I am an avid lover of pets and my wife and I have had several pets throughout our years. We are especially fond of dogs, and we have a 12 year old Dalmatian (our 3rd) and a "mutt" that we rescued when someone threw him away to die in a vacant field.

He found us, nearly starved to death, and weighed about 2 pounds.

After severe bouts of mange and severe dehydration, and over 1,000.00 in veterinarian bills, we saved the little guys life, and he is one of the best, if not the best, dogs we have ever had and today is a muscular, fit, and firm 70 pound best friend.

After finishing my MBA, which at middle age was not easy, I decided to keep the research work ethics that I acquired, and devote about two hours each night in understanding the health benefits of supplementation for both humans and pets and how they might strengthen our, as well as our pets, immune system in a preemptive approach to health rather than a reactionary approach.

Both of my daughters are avid cat lovers, and asked me to help them with health concerns and challenges with their cats.

I am not a veterinarian nor claim to be, just a lover of pets that loves to research and pass on some knowledge that might be helpful, or at least stimulating to the thought process.

Several of the articles that I have written can be found on my website;

Liquid Vitamins & Minerals for Humans & Pets
http://www.liquid-vitamins-minerals-humans-pets.com/