title: Dietary beet pulp decreases taurine status in dogs fed low protein diet.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  It is known that large dogs who are fed lamb and rice diets are at increased risk to develop taurine-deficiency-induced dilated cardiomyopathy. Since dogs obligatorily conjugate bile acids (BA) with taurine, we determined whether rice bran (RB) or other fibers (cellulose; CL, beet pulp; BP) would affect BA excretion and/or the taurine status of dogs.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Eighteen medium/large mixed-breed dogs were given purified diets containing CL, BP, or RB for 12 weeks. Taurine concentrations in plasma and whole blood were significantly decreased at week 12. The BP group, compared to the CL or RB groups, showed significantly lower taurine concentrations in plasma (6.5 ± 0.5 vs 20.4 ± 3.9 and 13.1 ± 2.0 μmol/L, respectively, P < 0.01, mean ± SEM) and in whole blood (79 ± 10 vs 143 ± 14 and 127 ± 14 μmol/L, respectively, P < 0.01), lower apparent protein digestibility (81.9 ± 0.6 vs 88.8 ± 0.6 and 88.1 ± 1.2 %, respectively, P < 0.01), and higher BA excretions (5.6 ± 0.1 vs 3.4 ± 0.5 and 3.4 ± 0.4 μmol/g feces, respectively, P < 0.05) at week 12.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results do not support the hypothesis that RB is likely to be a primary cause of lamb meal and rice diets, increasing the risk of taurine deficiency in large dogs. However these indicate that BP may contribute to a decrease taurine status in dogs by increasing excretion of fecal BA and decreasing protein digestibility, thus decreasing the bioavailability of sulfur amino acids, the precursors of taurine.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nutritional Science and Food Management, Collage of Science & Industry Convergence, Ewha Womans University, 52 Ewhayeodae-gil, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, 120-750 Korea ; Department of Molecular Biosciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California Davis, One Shield Ave, Davis, CA 95616 USA.
authors.forename: Kwang Suk
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-0515-5904
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Ko
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Biosciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California Davis, One Shield Ave, Davis, CA 95616 USA.
authors.forename: Andrea J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Fascetti
keywords: Bile acid excretion; Dilated cardiomyopathy; Dogs; Fiber; Taurine deficiency