THURSDAY, Nov. 22, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Raw diets are all the rage with dog lovers, but this attempt to boost your pooch’s nutrition could put you at risk of infection from antibiotic-resistant E. coli, a new study warns.
Feeding dogs uncooked meat increases the risk that they’ll excrete an E. coli variant that cannot be killed by ciprofloxacin, a widely used antibiotic, according to researchers at the University of Bristol in the U.K.
E. coli can cause food poisoning, and also is a common cause of urinary tract infections and blood poisoning, researchers said.
“Raw meat — whether intended for human consumption after cooking or sold as raw dog food — is likely to be contaminated with antibiotic-resistant E. coli,” lead researcher Matthew Avison, a professor of molecular bacteriology said in a university news release. “Cooking kills the bacteria and good hand hygiene reduces the immediate risk of these bacteria being swallowed and getting into a person’s intestines.”
Choosing to feed a dog raw meat means that a person is almost sure to handle it, he pointed out.
“Our research is clear that raw feeding also means pet owners are likely to be interacting with a pet that is excreting resistant E. coli,” Avison added.
For the study, researchers looked for ciprofloxacin-resistant E. coli carried in the intestines of 600 healthy pet dogs. They also asked owners to answer questions about their dog’s diet, places they walk and any antibiotics they’d received.
Analysis revealed that feeding uncooked meat to dogs was the only significant risk factor associated with excretion of antibiotic-resistant E. coli in their feces.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has classified ciprofloxacin and fluroquinolones among the highest-priority critically important antibiotics.
Doctors in the U.K. have cut back on use of ciprofloxacin, and farmers have stopped using fluroquinolones to treat livestock, researchers noted. These actions have led to a decrease in ciprofloxacin resistance in E. coli.
However, fluroquinolone use and resistance remains at high levels throughout the world.
“As part of our response to the emerging crisis of antibiotic resistance, further incentive should be given to companies joining the raw dog food industry to source meat from farms with appropriate antibiotic usage policies, and to test meat for resistant bacteria before selling,” Avison said. “Stricter limits should be set on the numbers of bacteria allowed in meat that is sold to be eaten uncooked than in meat sold to be cooked prior to eating.”
E. coli occurs normally in the intestines of both people and animals. Once a person ingests E. coli, the bacteria can sit in their intestines for years before causing an infection, researchers noted.
The new study was recently published in the journal One Health.
More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about E. coli.
SOURCE: University of Bristol, news release, Nov. 22, 2023
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