Oral Health and Dental Management

Evaluation of the in vitro digestibility of Veggiedent® FR3SH™ and five other dental chews for dogs

25^th World Congress on Dentistry and Oral Health

March 14-15, 2019 | London, UK

Celine S Nicolas

Virbac group, France

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Oral Health Dent Manag

Abstract:

Dental chews are recommended by veterinary dentists1 as home dental care to help maintain teeth clean. Safety and digestibility of these chews is, however, a major concern. In vitro digestibility of the following 6 dental chews was investigated in an independent lab: Veggiedent® FR3SH??? (Virbac), Greenies??? Fresh (Mars), Oravet??? (Merial), Dentastix??? (Mars), Prozym® sticks (Ceva) and Hill's® Prescription Diet® Dental Care Chews (Hill???s). The humidity level, protein content (Kjeldahl method), in vitro pepsic digestibility (sample heated for 48 hours at 40°C in a solution of pepsin hydrochloride2) and ileal digestibility as described by Boisen et al.3 (first incubation with a pepsin solution, pH2 for 6h to mimic gastric digestion and second with a pancreatin solution, pH 6.8 for 18h to mimic small intestinal digestion) were evaluated. Results are expressed as the % of nitrogen content (protein) dissolved (for pepsic digestibility) and as the % of dry matter dissolved (ileal digestibility). The humidity level ranged between 9.8% and 16.1% with a median of 13.5% and the protein content ranged between 6.5% and 43.1% of crude matter with a median of 15.55%. The results for pepsic and ileal digestibility were respectively of 100% and 100% for Veggiedent® FR3SH???; 96.5% and 91.8% for Greenies???, 100% and 98% for Oravet???, 96% and 100% for Dentastix???, 90.5% and 88.7% for Prozym® sticks and 97.2% and 100% for Hill's® Prescription Diet® dental care chews. Veggiedent® FR3SH??? is therefore totally digestible, as assessed by in vitro reference methods.

Recent Publications

1. Dramard V et al. (2018) Effect of l-theanine tablets in reducing stress-related emotional signs in cats: an openlabel field study. Ir Vet J. 71:21.

2. Almeras T et al. (2017) Comparative efficacy of the Leucofeligen??? FeLV/RCP and Purevax??? RCP FeLV vaccines against infection with circulating feline Calicivirus. BMC Vet Res. 13(1):300.

3. Wood CM et al. (2017) Prevalence and influence of cys407* Grm2 mutation in Hannover-derived Wistar rats: mGlu2 receptor loss links to alcohol intake, risk taking and emotional behaviour. Neuropharmacology. 115:128-138.

Biography :

Celine S Nicolas graduated in Veterinary Medicine and as a PhD from the University of Nantes (France). She then worked as a Post-doctoral fellow and Research Assistant at the University of Bristol (UK) for 5 years and at the University of Nice (France) for 2 years. She has published several articles in reputed journals and joined Virbac in 2016.

E-mail: celine.nicolas@virbac.com