Did my cat's new high-fat food or fast switch cause pancreatitis?

Question

Why she has inflamed pancreas? We switched her to one of the best foods on the market 7 days prior but only took 3 days to switch.. I wonder if we switched too fast. Can this cause an inflamed pancreas? She loved the food. But it has 37% protein, no carbs and 20% fat. Is this too much? She ate, then threw up, then ate again, then threw up again x 5. Can it be the food? More tests come Tuesday...can I slowly wean back to this diet again? Or is the fat too high? Pet's info: Cat | Mixed Breed | Female | spayed | 2.9 lbs

Lauren Jones VMD · Accepted Answer

Pancreatitis in cats more commonly occurs due to concurrent diseases (such as inflammatory bowel disease, cholangitis, cholangiohepatitis, diabetes mellitus, etc.) than due to high fat diets. Dogs commonly develop pancreatitis after eating high fat diets, but this not been shown to be the case with cats. There are also many other cats that develop pancreatitis idiopathically (i.e. we never determine why it happens). One guess to try to associate Bella's pancreatitis with the diet change would be that she may have developed vomiting from a fairly rapid diet transition. The vomiting may have caused a back flow of bile into the common bile duct, which also empties into the pancreatic duct. When back flow of bile occurs, it can introduce bacteria through the shared duct to the pancreas. This may be a stretch of a theory, but is possible. Before changing Bella back to her old diet, I would recommend waiting for further test results to determine if other diseases are present and indicating the need for a different prescription based diet. Since she has been ill, I would also recommend discussing her diet with her vet and taking a full 5-7 days to slowly transition to any new diet. I hope that she does well!

Did my cat's new high-fat food or fast switch cause pancreatitis?

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