In a healthy cat, thousands of different microbes create a diverse and balanced gut microbiome. But when there aren’t enough beneficial microbes, or there are too many harmful ones, that gut microbiome stops working properly which can cause problems like diarrhea, gas, hairballs, or itchy skin.
Your cat's journey to a healthy 2022 starts with improved gut health!
Benefits of a Healthy Gut
How Healthy is Your Cat's Gut?
Disruptions in the gut microbiome can be caused by a variety of factors, including disease, age, diet, and medications—especially antibiotics. Since 2016 pet parents around the world have used our veterinarian-recommened $75 KittyBiome Gut Health Test to quickly identify imbalances in their cat's gut health. Our test comes with actionable insights and recommendations personalized for your cat to help restore and maintain gut health.
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Dealing with a Gut Health Issue?
Try a Gut Health Starter Kit
Our Gut Health Starter Pack includes an at-home KittyBiome Gut Health Test to detect bacterial imbalances and a science-backed KittyBiome Gut Restore Supplement which provides thousands of different kinds of healthy dog-specific bacteria to relieve your cat’s digestive, skin, and immune health issues.
The Science of Gut Health Testing
A Gut Health Test can tell you a lot about what’s going on in your cat’s digestive system and even how to correct certain problems. By identifying all the different kinds of bacteria in your cat’s gut, microbiome testing can determine whether those different bacterial populations are present in balanced amounts when compared to the gut bacteria of healthy cats. Those correct proportions are the key to a thriving, well-balanced microbiome.
Bacteria belonging to the genus Escherichia (a group that includes E. coli), for example, are beneficial members of the community when they make up less than 5% of a cat’s gut microbiome. But an overgrowth of Escherichia can cause diarrhea and other digestive issues. Bacteriophages (viruses that infect and kill certain strains of bacteria) that specifically target pathogenic strains of E. coli (such as PreforPro) can help to bring the digestive tract into better balance. The journal Antibiotics recently reported that such bacteriophages provide an effective alternative to antibiotic use in medical practice.
The Fusobacterium genus is also present in most healthy cats. When these bacteria are missing, digestion can suffer, but high levels of Fusobacterium are also associated with digestive issues, particularly diarrhea, so moderation is key. Bacteria in the Fusobacterium family do best in protein-rich environments, so if your cat’s KittyBiome Gut Health Test shows a deficiency in this kind of bacteria, increasing the protein content of their diet may help. If the test shows that Fusobacterium levels are high, the addition of a small amount of prebiotic fiber (like inulin or psyllium husk) to the diet can help bring these levels down by supporting bacteria in the gut that make molecules that help fight inflammation.