Treating Constipation in Cats: Probiotics

We’re discussing treatments for feline constipation, which we’ve divided into fluids, fiber, prebiotics & probiotics, Chinese herbs, enemas, laxatives, suppositories, and drugs that enhance gut motility. We’ve covered fluids, soluble and insoluble fibers, and now, let’s consider probiotics.

What are Probiotics?
Probiotics are the bacteria and yeast that populate your cat’s gut when it’s healthy. In a healthy gut, there are so many bacteria and yeast organisms (prokaryotic cells) that they equal more than the total number of regular cells (eukaryotic) in your cat’s entire body.

Probiotics make vitamins and nutrients, actively promoting your cat’s health; and probiotics support the feline immune system to prevent disease. Cats without healthy probiotic organisms have irritable bowel syndrome, diarrhea, and increased susceptibility to disease. Cats with healthy guts are most likely to have normal bowel movements and not be constipated.

Examples of normal cat probiotic bacteria and yeast
There are more than a dozen different probiotic organisms in the health cat gut, including these bacteria and yeasts:
• Lactobacillus (L. acidophilus, L. bulgaricus, and L. thermophilus),
• Streptococcus bulgaricus,
• Enterococcus faecium,
• Bifidoacterium bifidus, and
• Saccharomyces boulardii.

What wipes out your cat’s probiotic organisms?
Probiotics began to populate the feline gut immediately after birth, but they aren’t permanent. These living cells can be wiped out and will need to be replaced if cats:
• eat the wrong foods (high carbohydrate diets),
• become infected with pathogenic gut bacteria (salmonella or clostridia)
• become infected with parasites (giardia or coccidia), or
• are placed on antibiotics.

Replacing probiotic organisms
Yogurt and kefir contain small amounts of these probiotics and are sufficient for healthy cats, but supplements with a high concentration of probiotics are necessary for cats with diarrhea, debilitation or those taking antibiotics. Antibiotics kill the healthy bacteria and organisms in your cat’s intestines as surely as they kill bad bacteria.

Many products are marketed as probiotics, but they don’t contain any viable organisms. Your cat needs from 20-500 million probiotic organisms per day and receives no benefit from useless products. Refrigerated probiotics that include a food source for the probiotic organisms, such as apple pectin or the milk in yogurt, may be better than powdered supplements. Some cats that cannot tolerate milk can tolerate yogurt.

Some veterinarians suggest that probiotics are absorbed better if they take advantage of the body’s natural pH change through the day. For example, acidophilus is best given in the morning and bifidus at night. All veterinarians recommend that probiotics not be given with antibiotics, but a couple hours later than the antibiotic. Probiotic doses are doubled or tripled for cats taking antibiotics.

Coming Up
We’ll cover prebiotics, herbs, and other treatments over the next few days.