FDA Reports There is No Evidence to Link DCM to Grain-Free Pet Food

In 2018, the FDA began releasing reports on an ongoing investigation of a potential link between certain pet foods (grain-free diets with a high proportion of peas, lentils, legumes and/or potatoes) and Canine Dilated Cardiomyopathy.

Since that time, many good brands were named as being “dangerous” and a great deal of hype and misinformation circulated among the public and even veterinarians. Noble Beast has been encouraging our customers to read the reports for themselves, as media reporting on the issue lacked substance, and the reports themselves had no data demonstrating that certain pet foods were leading to heart issues.

In December 2022, the FDA finally released a brief statement saying they would not release further updates on this topic. “FDA has followed up on a subset of these reports, but is unable to investigate every report to verify or confirm the reported information,” FDA officials said in the statement. “While adverse event numbers can be a potential signal of an issue with an FDA regulated product, by themselves, they do not supply sufficient data to establish a causal relationship with reported product(s).”

In other words, the FDA does not have evidence that grain free pet food causes DCM. While we are glad to see this update, we also know that once misinformation is out in public, it continues to be spread and this issue is not going to fade for a long time, if ever.

There have been some interesting follow-up studies. In March 2022, veterinarians and scientists from BSM Partners, a pet care research and consulting firm, and the University of Missouri found “no significant correlation between the national canine DCM incidence rates in relation to grain-free pet food sales.”

Please find the article here.

Link to initial our initial reaction and FDA report here.

As always, all of us at Noble Beast care very much about animals, ours and yours. We only want to offer the best available pet food, and we will continue to monitor information on this topic as it evolves. In the meantime, we continue to offer common-sense advice to help you decide the best way to feed your pets, grain-free or not.