Basepaws, a Los Angeles company, values cat teeth hygiene and wants cat owners to feel the same.
The company is running a $ 70 preventive tooth test at home. The test “analyzes more than 600 microbes in the cat’s mouth to look for signs of illness before it can be seen with the naked eye”. Says.
The first genetic test of its kind follows Basepaws’ $ 129 home DNA test for your cat’s pedigree, which was introduced a few years ago.
“Our pets can’t talk,” says Anna Skaya, CEO and founder of the company. “Genetic testing is one of the few ways we can better understand our pets.”
She is right – to a certain extent.
I have two rescue cats in my house which, as my Twitter friends know, I believe is a dog.
Pets can’t talk, that’s true. But they communicate with human servants. In my opinion, dogs can do this better than cats. I think they are more expressive and more emotional.
But cats also understand their needs. When you are not feeling well, you often lose your appetite. They crouch in the house and disappear under the bed or in the closet.
In other words, they show that something is wrong.
Therefore, the questions that should be asked during a Basepaw’s home dental exam (including wiping a cat’s mouth and sending a cotton swab for laboratory analysis) can provide powerful insights into all of these microbes. is.
Not to mention Skaya.
“You probably don’t brush your cat’s teeth every day,” she said.
None of the owners, including me, have cats. If it makes me a bad person, that’s fine.
“Genetic testing is the door to changing the way you talk to your veterinarian about your cat,” says Skaya.
Roger that. Once you have a bite of microbiological test results, you can actually ask your veterinarian what that data point is or what it means. As Skaya says, “This will avoid problems.”
However, it is believed that the test will actually produce valuable results.
I have contacted many veterinary dentists. I gave them a press release. Announced dental examination kit.
Nobody was convinced that the product was worth the money.
Santiago Peralta, associate professor of dental and oral surgery in the Cornell University School of Veterinary Medicine, said Basspoe’s claim has “little or no scientific or medical relevance to me.”
“This information suggests that the people behind the product do not understand the clinical or mechanical characteristics of periodontal disease or other dental diseases that often affect cats and other animal species. “He told me.
Jason Soukup, a clinical professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Veterinary School, said Basepo’s tests were “overly reliable, severely misleading and could lead to unsupported treatment recommendations.” Was.
“I don’t think we have enough data,” said Stephanie Goldschmidt, assistant professor of veterinary medicine at the University of Minnesota.
Basepaws’ Skaya argued that her company’s dental tests were reviewed by a veterinarian. It works as advertised, she said.
Skaya shared the paper with me. It has been submitted to the Journal of Veterinary Dentistry and has not yet been peer-reviewed.
“The area of oral microbiome research for pets has received little attention and is still in its infancy,” admits the author of the paper.
They admit they are dealing with limited data. Nonetheless, they come to the conclusion that the Basepaws test “can make it easier to diagnose early-stage dental disease”.
It’s not exactly a ringing support. But that at least increases the potential for scientific benefits for the swab-based approach to cat dental care.
Still, 2018 Study A in Genetics in Medicine found that 40% of DNA tests in human households that showed disease risk were false positive. That is, they were wrong.
Also, be extra careful with putting your hand near the cat’s mouth. After being bitten by a cat, I was in the hospital for a week. About $ 55,000 in medical expenses Kitty’s microbes were found to be toxic. And expensive.
Even so, I bravely tried to test Basepaws’ teeth with Jupiter, one of our cats. I’ll post the result on Twitter in a few weeks.
In order for Basepaws home DNA testing to delve into the history of your cat’s ancestry, consider all of these results as salt.
I did a DNA test (not from Basepaws) on me and my dog. Apparently I’m 11.3% Scandinavian, 7.8% Spanish or Portuguese, 3.1% Italian. All of this was news to my parents, who did not know such an ancestor.
The gene cup of the rescue dog Teddy seems to be full of Bernhard’s DNA.
Sheldon Krimsky, professor of urban environmental policy planning at Tufts University and author of many books on genetics, tells me that ancestry testing is best viewed as a “more fun activity.” I did.
So they can be more fun than the facts. Like your horoscope in the newspaper.
Also, for unknown reasons, I find it more interesting to look into canine DNA than into cat DNA. Like humans, dogs can be a whole made up of many parts. A cat is a cat. And I mean that in the best sense of the word.
In any case, I think it is probably true that Skaya says that “household products will constitute the bulk of the future of animal health care”.
I don’t know if we’re still there.
Basepaws has a DNA test on your cat’s teeth. It works? Source link Basepaws has a DNA test on your cat’s teeth. It works?
