We saw an instagram post from another company recently, that said if you gave your dog chia seeds every day, 5 good things would happen.
- They'll help dogs manage their weight because the fibre makes them feel full.
- Chia seeds contain good stuff that makes their skin healthy and their coat shiny.
- Chia seeds can also help with joint mobility.
- Chia seeds can help keep a dog's blood sugar level steady which helps with dogs that have got diabetes.
- The fibre makes it easier to digest food and keeps their tummies happy.
We decided to put those claims to the test, on a recent episode of The Pet Nutrition Show.
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If you're more of a reader, here's what Anna told us:
This instagram post was encouraging people to give their dogs half a teaspoon of chia seeds every day. And it said that if you did that, five really good things were going to happen.
Now, Anna, I'd like to take these one by one and see what you think about them. And the first one is that if you give your dog chia seeds, it will help dogs manage their weight because the fiber makes them feel full. True or false?
That's a good one, Amanda. It's probably true because chia seeds have a truckload of fibre and actually if you add water to them, you'll see they swell up hugely and they do the same thing in your dog's stomach and they activate then stretch receptors that tell your dog, hopefully, please stop eating now or don't eat quite so much.
So, so a yes to that one. Not sure if they work with my lab.
Number two, chia seeds contain good stuff that makes their skin healthy and their coat shiny. What could that good stuff be?
I think they're talking about the omega 3 fatty acids in, in chia seeds. Chia seeds are very rich in ALA, which is a type of omega 3 fatty acid. That's great for a lot of things, including keeping your skin healthy and your coat shiny. Now there is a caveat to that because ALA needs to be converted into.
DHA and EPA longer chain omega free fatty acids to really be effective. And in that regard, you may be better just going for the D, the DHA and the EPA that you can get from fish oil but Chia seeds are still a great source.
Just not quite so efficient. And perhaps that might be part of the same answer to number three, which is that chia seeds can also help with joint mobility.
Yes, that's the same thing. So with joint mobility and inflammation, omega 3 fatty acids, particularly DHA and EPA can help manage inflammation. So what they're saying here is the omega 3s in chia seeds may help with joint inflammation. That's true, but only after they've been converted into DHA and EPA, just like before.
So if you wanted a more efficient method you might have an algae based DHA or a fish oil.
Now number four is that chia seeds can help keep a dog's blood sugar level steady which helps with dogs that have got diabetes.
Now, that's an interesting one because there's quite a lot of studies in this area in humans. So chia seeds are very rich in fibre. We've mentioned that already. They're rich in the insoluble fibre that acts like a broom, but also the soluble fibre that acts a little bit like a gel and effectively forms a gel coating along the GI tract that can slow down the absorption of certain nutrients, including sugars, and this can help stabilise sugar levels, at least in humans, so a yes to that one.
And okay, and then number five is it helps digestion. The fibre makes it easier to digest food and keeps their tummies happy.
I think this is a maybe, and I think I probably would have put it a slightly different way. So, chia seeds As I've mentioned, do contain fibre and part of that fibre is very fermentable. So what that means is that fermentable portion helps feed the bacteria in your dog's gut, which generate short chain fatty acids that feed various other cells and do all sorts of other things.
Those microbes, those bacteria also are able to do some nutrient digestion. It's not the main role, but they certainly are. So the more you have them in theory, you know, you can help digestion that way.
So, in summary, generally good, but are there any downsides?
Yes, look, with anything, there's always a bit of a dark side, isn't it? Look, chia seeds are particularly rich in phytates and oxalates and both these interfere with nutrients, absorptions of various minerals and so forth. However in real life. You're probably only going to give your dog, as they recommend here, half a teaspoon to a tablespoon or so a day of chia seeds.
So, in the context of a healthy diet chia seeds are certainly a great thing to add. And they're probably not going to do any harm in that regard.
