Therapeutic effects of an alpha-casozepine and L-tryptophan supplemented diet on fear and anxiety in the cat - PubMed (original) (raw)

Therapeutic effects of an alpha-casozepine and L-tryptophan supplemented diet on fear and anxiety in the cat

Gary Landsberg et al. J Feline Med Surg. 2017 Jun.

Abstract

Objectives This study assessed the anxiolytic effectiveness of a test diet (Royal Canin Feline Calm diet) supplemented with L-tryptophan and alpha-casozepine. Methods Subjects were 24 cats that were classified as mildly or markedly fearful based on the presence of a person in their home room. Three different protocols were used to assess anxiety: (1) evaluation of the response to a human in the cat's home room (home room test); (2) analysis of the response to placement in an empty test room (open-field test); and (3) analysis of the response to an unfamiliar human (human interaction test). All three protocols were first run at baseline, and the results were used to assign the animals to control and test diet groups that showed equivalent fear and anxiety. Both groups were retested on the three protocols after 2 weeks (test 1) and again after 4 weeks (test 2). Results The diet groups differed for two behavioral measures in the open-field test: inactivity duration and inactivity frequency. The control group showed statistically significant increases in inactivity duration between baseline and test 1 and baseline and test 2, while the group fed the test diet showed a marginally not significant decrease in inactivity duration between baseline and test 1 and a not significant decrease for test 2. There was also a significant increase in inactivity frequency between baseline and test 1 in the test diet group and marginally not significant decrease in the control group. There were no differences between groups in the approach of the cats toward people for the home room test and the human interaction test. Conclusions and relevance These results suggest that the test diet reduced the anxiety response to placement in an unfamiliar location, but that fear in the presence of an unfamiliar person was not counteracted by the diet.

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Conflict of interest statement

Gary Landsberg, Dr Milgram, Christina de Rivera and Stephanie Kelly do not have any potential conflicts of interest to declare other than providing the research for this study as contracted by Royal Canin. Isabelle Mougeot is an employee of Royal Canin.

Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1

Distance traveled in open-field task as a function of treatment and session. On the control diet there was a statistically significant decrease (P <0.05) between baseline and test 1 and a marginally not significant decrease (P <0.09) between baseline and test 2. By contrast, cats on the test diet showed a non-significant increase

Figure 2

Figure 2

Inactivity duration in open-field task as a function of treatment and session. Inactivity duration significantly (P <0.05) increased from baseline to test 1 in control cats while test diet cats showed a marginally not significant decrease (P = 0.07). For test 2 there was a significant increase (P <0.05) from baseline in the control group and a non-significant decrease in the test diet group

Figure 3

Figure 3

Inactivity frequency in open-field task as a function of treatment and session. Inactivity frequency was significantly increased (P <0.05) in test 1 and non-significantly in test 2 for the test diet, while the control diet had a marginally not significant decrease (P <0.08) at test 1 and a non-significant decrease at test 2

Figure 4

Figure 4

Vocalization frequency in open-field and human interaction tests. Vocalization frequency was significantly greater (P <0.005) in the open-field test than the human interaction test

Figure 5

Figure 5

Comparison of effects of diazepam and Royal Canin Feline Calm diet on open-field inactivity duration. Inactivity duration showed a marginally not significant decrease (P = 0.07) after 2-week treatment with test diet while the control group significantly increased (P <0.05) (left). Similarly, inactivity duration decreased significantly after diazepam therapy (right) compared with baseline (P <0.001)

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