Cat Health Advice - Signs of Good Cat Health

Good cat health depends on the body being able to repair itself whenever the need arises. All parts of a cat's body are capable of defence, self-diagnosis, and renewal. Organs, cells, even molecules recognize when damage occurs and proceed to remove, recondition, or replace the damage. A cat’s body is on guard every second of every day. Only when its natural defences fail does illness ensue.

Cat HealthNatural Healing

My role as a veterinarian is not to heal animals. Cats are outstandingly efficient at healing themselves. A vet's job is to create the circumstances in which an animal’s body is best able to repair itself. This can be done by recommending a good diet, by prescribing medicines to help the body overcome attack or organ failure, by surgical interventions such as setting a broken bone, and (this is the complex part) by creating a positive environment that promotes natural healing.

Obvious healing occurs at the visible level. Let us say a cat suffers a skin puncture in a fight with another cat. Over the next two weeks the skin naturally repairs itself. You can watch and marvel as the damage disappears. All of us are familiar with the inflammation that occurs around a puncture, the formation of a scab, and the growth of new skin under the scab to fill the defect. The real repair, however is less visible.

Cat Health Advice - Guardians of Good Health

At all times, white blood cells circulate in the bloodstream, waiting for accidents to happen. When an injury occurs, such as the skin puncture wound, the "infantry" arrive. Cells called neutrophils, the body's most populous white blood cells, converge, at the spot where the defensive line of the skin has been breached. They kill germs that have got through. This creates debris, but almost immediately other white blood cells, called macrophages, quite literally "big eaters", arrive, engulf, and digest the debris. Pus consists of white cells that have committed suicide defending the body. Meanwhile, cell formation begins anew at the margin of the wound. New cells grow across the wound, under the protection of the carapace-like blood clot that has formed. New blood vessels sprout from the closest intact vessels and grow with the new cells.

Cat Health Advice - Harmonious Activity

All of these activities are controlled by recently discovered chemical regulators called cytokines, proteins so small and so scarce they are almost impossible to detect. Some cytokines stimulate cell growth, while others inhibit it. There is a natural, well-regulated balance between these opposing cytokines. If you consider that the entire lining of your cat's digestive system is virtually renewed several times each week, that gives you an idea of how coordinated these activities are. This natural balance of cytokine activity is influenced by hormones and by the nervous system, by the "state of mind". One state of mind encourages a homeostatic balance of cytokine activity. Another state of mind results in cytokine disharmony. This is how "stress" affects good health.

Cat Health Advice - Cellular Good Health

The wall of a cell is, like a cat's skin, its first and most important line of defence. It is not a permanent structure, but a membrane made up of proteins embedded in a fatty substance. Recent research into omega-3 (anti-inflammatory) and omega-6 (pro­inflammatory) fatty acids has shown how a cat's diet influences the levels of these fatty acids in cell membranes. Cells with more omega-3 fatty acids in their walls are less likely to become inflamed than those with a preponderance of omega-6 fatty acids. Cell walls are covered with special receptor sites that are designed to recognize and bind important nutrients, hormones, and other substances to the cell. To ensure that the receptor sites are always kept in pristine condition, bits of the cell wall with their receptor sites are continually withdrawn into the cell where they are examined, repaired if necessary, and then returned to the cell's surface. Inside the cells, scavengers called lysosomes recognize and eliminate defective sections of the cell wall. This is natural healing at the cellular level.

Cat Health Advice - Molecular Good Health

Cats have trillions of cells in their bodies and millions are replaced every single day. Cells make new cells by passing on their genetic information, their DNA, from one generation to the next. Technically, DNA also transcribes information into another related molecule called RNA that can travel out of a cell nucleus. RNA translates the information it acquired from DNA and directs cells to manufacture specific proteins that will determine the form and function of all aspects of life. These processes of replication, transcription, and translation of information are the most basic processes of life and are profoundly "homeostatic".