Diabetic Feline Diet

Diabetes in cats occurs when your cat's insulin doesn't balance out her glucose levels. Insulin is a chemical responsible for keeping glucose levels in a safe range. Glucose is what gives the body energy, and without insulin to regulate it, your cat will not be able to use the energy from the glucose and will lose weight, starving to death. Feline diabetes is treatable, and the right diet can help.

High-Protein, Low-Carbohydrate Diet

The most important thing to remember when feeding your cat with diabetes is that he will benefit from a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet. Wheat gluten should be avoided because it hurts the intestinal tract. Feed him primarily wet food. Dry cat food, even the kind that is made especially for diabetic cats, is no match for wet food. Fancy Feast is a recommended, cost-effective brand of canned cat food. A list of Fancy Feast with less than 10-percent carbohydrates and no wheat gluten can be found at felinediabetes.com/glutenfree.htm.

Treats

If you would like to feed your cat treats that won't affect her diabetes, there are a couple of things you can try. Use an ice tray that makes small ice cubes and freeze non-oil-based canned fish juice. Your diabetic cat can snack on this without any worries, but she may not like the cold ice. You can also warm up a heavy dish with water and mash up dry treats made for diabetic cats in the water. The temperature of the water will even out once you add the dry treats.

Treating Hypoglycemia

Hypoglycemia happens when your diabetic cat's glucose levels get too low. You can tell if he's hypoglycemic if he's disoriented or passes out. You can feed him a small amount, about one to three teaspoons, of corn syrup, or use a glucose solution or any other sweet syrups. (Corn syrup is cheap and lasts for a long time.) Once you have the hypoglycemia resolved, you may want to take your cat to the vet to get his blood sugar under control.