Table 1.
Digestibility test with old cats fed a high-fat diet: cats with normal cobalamin and feline pancreatic lipase (fPL) (controls), cats with subnormal cobalamin concentrations (low vitamin B12) and cats with high fPL
(Mean values with their standard errors; n 16)
| Control (n 5) | Low vitamin B12 (n 5) | High fPL (n 6) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean | sem | Mean | sem | Mean | sem | P† | |
| Initial BW (g) | 5314 | 534 | 3476 | 210 | 4963 | 632 | 0·103 |
| Final BW (g) | 5384 | 587 | 3498 | 231 | 5085 | 568 | 0·078 |
| Food intake, DM basis (g/d) | 47·1 | 5·7 | 46·6 | 2·1 | 46·6 | 7·1 | 0·836 |
| Food intake, DM basis (g/kg mBW) | 13·2 | 1·0 | 18·5* | 1·1 | 14·4 | 2·2 | 0·065 |
| Faecal output, as-is basis (g/d) | 16·4 | 2·6 | 26·8 | 4·5 | 18·9 | 2·4 | 0·127 |
| Faecal output, DM basis (g/d) | 6·2 | 0·86 | 8·3 | 0·79 | 7·3 | 0·99 | 0·327 |
| Apparent total digestibility (%) | |||||||
| DM | 87·7 | 0·37 | 83·0 | 1·00 | 83·9 | 2·0 | 0·153 |
| OM | 91·2 | 0·27 | 86·9 | 0·98 | 88·1 | 1·4 | 0·067 |
| CP | 89·8 | 0·37 | 86·3 | 1·4 | 86·8 | 1·9 | 0·311 |
| Fat (acid hydrolysis) | 92·9 | 0·71 | 83·9* | 3·1 | 89·0 | 2·1 | 0·024 |
| NFE | 94·7 | 0·31 | 93·2 | 0·74 | 92·2 | 1·2 | 0·279 |
| Metabolisable energy (kJ/kg DM) | 19 961 | 58 | 18 825* | 267 | 19 258 | 293 | 0·029 |
BW, body weight; mBW, metabolic body weight; OM, organic matter; CP, crude protein; NFE, N-free extracts.
* Mean value was significantly different from that of the control group (P < 0·05; Mann–Whitney U test with Bonferroni correction).
† Significance of the Kruskall–Wallis one-way ANOVA.