Sweet Breta survived cancer

We asked the top vet oncologist in the country Dr Clare Knottenbelt, owner of gorgeous labrador Jumble (who has had a mast cell tumour removed from his head) for her opinion on this. Here is her answer:

I feed Jumble Green Crunch as I believe that this diet will reduce his risk of cancer and help reduce climate change. In humans it’s well recognised that meat consumption especially red meat and processed meat is associated with a higher instance of cancer. Many of the anti- cancer nutrients are also plant products – I was amazed once I started to explore the contents of “ anti- cancer” supplements for people and pets. There is so much information out there. Of course there is very little published evidence in pets as few people consider feeding dogs plant based food.

There is no doubt that there is a genetic link to many types of tumours and Golden Retrievers for example are particularly problematic – particularly in the US where 40% get cancer. However what is interesting is the way in which dogs are often used as models for human cancer in research trials for new treatments. In addition dogs and other animals can act as sentinels for environmental issues such as the case where sheep started getting asbestos associated mesotheliomas in Italy and soon so did the humans.

Our pets inhabit the same environments as us so they are exposed to the same carcinogens. Obviously they don’t do the stupid things we do to our own bodies like smoking and drinking. There was an interesting article in new Scientist recently about a theory about how obesity increases the risk if cancer in humans – it relates to there being a higher actual number of cells in the body and therefore a higher risk of the mutations that cause cancer occurring. If that is the case then there is no reason why this same link could not occur in dogs.

Of course dogs don’t live as long as we do so they have less exposure to the risk factors we have but despite this they have the same incidence of cancer as humans (1 in 3 dogs and humans will develop cancer). Until recently I have been skeptical about the cancer supplements that are available however with more owners asking me about specific ones, I decided it was time to approach them with an open mind.

So now what I do is try to look at the various supplements and assess their contents – this is important as sometimes there are things in supplements that worry me.  For example Lutein is known to promote inhibition of various types of cancer cells in human and only comes from plants.