Autumn-Argus Farm

Sphynx Cats Articles, Info & Entertainment

Role Of Taurine In Cats

Gail Kuhlman, Ph.D., P.A.S.
Diplomate, American College of Animal Nutrition

Serve the best — Royal Canin — contains taurine! Taurine is an amino acid that can be synthesized by most species from the amino acids methionine and cystine. Taurine was discovered in 1827 and was isolated from a bull, hence its name. Contrary to classical amino acids that are included in fairly complex proteins, taurine is found in the free form. The following tissues are especially rich in taurine: muscles (including heart), the central nervous system, and the retina of the eye.

In identifying the role of taurine, it was found that in cats, taurine is indispensable for the formation of biliary salts that are essential to the digestion of fats in the small intestine. Contrary to other species, the cat cannot use any other amino acid for this function. Therefore, the cat requires a dietary intake of taurine.

Another function of taurine is to maintain the completeness of the retina of the eye (the retina is the membrane that covers the fundus of the eye, on which pictures are formed). In the retina, there is 100 to 400 times more taurine than in the blood. In 1975, it was found that in the cat, a chronic deficiency of taurine induces a progressive degeneration of the retina, leading to a total blindness within 2 years. It is possible to stop the progression with dietary taurine supplementation, but the lesions are not reversible.

Taurine also plays a significant role in cardiac function, reproduction and the nervous system. An interaction between taurine and blood coagulation, immune responses, and protection of the respiratory tissue has also been demonstrated. Therefore, taurine is needed for many bodily functions and reactions.

Understanding the need for dietary taurine in the cat, scientists and nutritionists agree that a minimum of 1000 mg of taurine per kg of dry matter in dry cat products (0.1 %) and twice that in canned cat food products (0.2 %) is needed. As this level of taurine supplementation is not consistently done in dog food, it is essential that cats be fed complete & balanced cat foods, not dog foods.