Changing the energy game and moving towards precision delivery of dietary energy: Development and validation of net energy systems for foods fed to domestic cats

超重和肥胖是宠物最常见的营养相关疾病。这种高发病率的部分原因是喂养指南缺乏准确性，目前的喂养指南并没有根据动物可获得的能量，根据饮食中脂肪、蛋白质和碳水化合物的独特供应来估计食物需求。拟议中的研究将回答有关能量代谢的基本问题，同时支持开发更准确地报告食物能量含量的新型宠物食品。为此，猫将被喂食不同数量的蛋白质（研究1）或纤维（研究2），以确定这两种常量营养素对猫能量代谢的影响，使用金标准和非侵入性方法测量，称为间接量热法。这项研究的结果将使兽医和猫主人更好地管理他们宠物的体重和整体健康和福祉。该公司的行业合作伙伴Petcurean已经发现，尽管肥胖是全球数百万宠物的健康问题，但他们为猫提供的体重管理产品目前非常有限。该公司希望开发一系列控制体重的猫粮，提供独特的价值主张——准确测定食物的真实能量含量。这种新的产学研合作伙伴关系将支持Petcurean的研发工作，并继续有机会增加全球对猫科动物健康和福祉的了解。这些技术的成功商业化将促进全球对加拿大宠物食品的需求，改善我们对猫主人的建议，并改善猫的健康和福祉。该项目进一步为快速发展的宠物食品行业培训和教育未来的科学家和技术人员提供了一个重要的机会。

Overweight and obesity are the most common nutrition-related diseases in pets. This high incidence rate is in part due to the lack of accuracy of feeding guidelines, which do not currently estimate food requirements based on the energy available to the animal based on the unique provision of dietary fat, protein and carbohydrates. The proposed research will answer fundamental questions about energy metabolism while supporting the development of new pet foods that more accurately report energy content of the food. To this end, cats will be fed different amount of protein (Study 1) or fiber (Study 2) to determine the effect of these two macronutrients on the energy metabolism of cats measured using the gold standard and non-invasive approach called indirect calorimetry. The results of this research will allow veterinarians and cat owners to better manage their pet's body weight and overall health and well-being. The industry partner, Petcurean, has identified that their product offering for weight management for cats is currently very limited even though obesity is a health concern for millions of pets worldwide. The company wants to develop a line of weight control cat foods that offer a unique value proposition - an accurate determination of the true energy content of the food. This new industrial-academic partnership will support the R&D efforts of Petcurean and continuing opportunities to add to the global knowledge on feline health and well-being. The successful commercialization of these technologies would promote the global demand for Canadian pet foods, improve our recommendations to cat owners, and improve the health and well-being of cats. This project further represents a significant opportunity to train and educate several future scientists and technologists for the rapidly growing pet food industry.