Cat Hairballs A Problem? UW Researchers Find Solution
Purina Hold Exclusive License For New Hairball-Control Formula
Posted: 7:25 a.m. CDT October 1, 2003Updated: 8:43 a.m. CDT October 1, 2003
MADISON, Wis. -- What's in the average cat hairball besides hair? A team of University of Wisconsin scientists have been pondering that question, and have good news for cats and their keepers.
Cats get hairballs when they groom themselves and swallow hair, which snares undigested fat in their stomachs, which stays trapped and growing in the stomach until coughed up.
UW animal scientist Mark Cook and Purina researchers have devised a way to help dissolve hairballs by using agents that break up fats and allow the hairballs the pass through cats' digestive systems.
Cook and his collaborators, Beth Drake, Leonard Girsch and Janet Jackson, conceived the idea after discovering that hairballs can contain up to 30 percent fat.
Cook first tested a common dishwashing detergent on test samples of furballs, which worked. He then moved on to a food-grade fat emulsifier, a solution of which trimmed the size of hairballs by more than 50 percent.
In the new hairball formula, an edible emulsifier called soy lecithin helps break down existing hairballs, allowing them to pass more easily through a cat's digestive tract, and minimizes the formation of new ones, researchers said. ( Read more )
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation issued a patent on a technique and Purina holds the exclusive license to the technology for a new hairball-control cat food formulas that arrived in store over the summer, including Purina One Special Care.
Read More About Hairballs
Cats get hairballs when they groom themselves and swallow hair, which snares undigested fat in their stomachs, which stays trapped and growing in the stomach until coughed up.
UW animal scientist Mark Cook and Purina researchers have devised a way to help dissolve hairballs by using agents that break up fats and allow the hairballs the pass through cats' digestive systems.
Cook and his collaborators, Beth Drake, Leonard Girsch and Janet Jackson, conceived the idea after discovering that hairballs can contain up to 30 percent fat.
Cook first tested a common dishwashing detergent on test samples of furballs, which worked. He then moved on to a food-grade fat emulsifier, a solution of which trimmed the size of hairballs by more than 50 percent.
In the new hairball formula, an edible emulsifier called soy lecithin helps break down existing hairballs, allowing them to pass more easily through a cat's digestive tract, and minimizes the formation of new ones, researchers said. ( Read more )
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation issued a patent on a technique and Purina holds the exclusive license to the technology for a new hairball-control cat food formulas that arrived in store over the summer, including Purina One Special Care.
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