by Michelle Graf

Created on: February 26, 2010   Last Updated: February 27, 2010

Anyone who has ever gone shopping for cat food is familiar with the word taurine.  It is advertised as an additive to virtually all makes and models of cat food.  But what is taurine, and why does your cat need it?

Taurine is an amino acid, a substance found in proteins that helps the body break down certain types of nutrients into the building blocks needed for cell development.  Unlike some amino acids, taurine is found solely in meat sources.  In the wild, felines are almost exclusively carnivores.  Because their diet is so rich in meat, wild felines are usually easily able to get their taurine requirements from their diet.  Unlike some other mammals, cats are unable to synthesize (produce taurine from other proteins) taurine, and must meet their nutritional requirements exclusively through their diet. 

Our little tame wild cats, however, are usually fed commercial food.  Most commercial food uses plant based sources as fillers - corn, wheat, oats, etc.  In some brands, plant based items may even be listed as the first ingredient!  While plant sources can meet some of the cat's nutritional needs in terms of caloric intake, plant sources lack many of the specific amino acids and nutrients that are essential for cats.  As a result, commercial pet food manufacturers started adding nutrients such as taurine to their products.

Taurine is crucial for the health and maintenance of muscle cells in the cat's eyes and heart.  Without sufficient taurine, a cat's retinas will deteriorate, eventually causing irreversible blindness.  In the heart, a lack of taurine leads to a condition called dilated cardiomyopathy.  The heart muscle is too weak to function properly, which leads to congestive heart failure.  This condition has become increasingly rare since commercial cat food manufacturers began adding taurine to cat food.

Interestingly, some sports and energy drinks made for humans are now touting the benefits of taurine.  Taurine is also a needed amino acid in humans, but at a much smaller amount than cats need.  There are several claims about the health benefits of taurine in humans, but no conclusive evidence to back up these claims has been determined as yet.  Other than individuals on vegan diets, most humans are able to synthesize sufficient taurine amounts from their diet without need to supplement.

References:  www.cfa.org, Merck Manual of Veterinary Medicine

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