Your Cat’s Health — About Transfer Factors
There are a number of supplementation products designed to enhance your cat’s health. One such product contains an immune boosting component known as transfer factors. If your cat is in ill health from an immune system disorder, a long term chronic illness, or is in a weakened state due to a recent surgery or injury, many veterinarians are saying these products may help.
What are transfer factors? Transfer factors are small protein molecules that are part of the immune system. In order to get a handle on the concept, it’s necessary to understand a bit about the immune system.
Cats, like all mammals, have an immune system that protects them from disease.
The immune system mounts an immune response when the body recognizes and attacks foreign invaders, such as bacteria. The body has specialized cells that attack the invaders and destroy them. Once the threat is eliminated, the attack stops.
Sometimes, however, things don’t go quite right with the immune response. For example, in cats with certain conditions, such as feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), the immune system is compromised and has trouble defending the cat’s body against invaders. This is the feline version of HIV-AIDS, and causes the immune system to under perform.
In other cases, the immune system is misdirected and doesn’t shut itself off when it should. In autoimmune diseases, such as many forms of arthritis, an immune response is mounted against the body’s own tissues.
How do transfer factors work? Transfer factors act as messengers, alerting your cat’s body to the presence of foreign invaders. These proteins also modulate an overactive immune system. Essentially, they call the immune system to action, and then call off the attack at the appropriate time.
In this respect, transfer factors are essential to proper immune system function. Also, notice that they don’t just increase disease fighting capability, they balance or modulate the immune system. This means it can be used on cats with autoimmune diseases as well as cats with under performing immune systems.
Combining the immune modulating power of transfer factor with nutrition beneficial to overall cat health, dietary supplements are available for your cat.
Some veterinarians are open to the idea of adding supplements to your cat’s diet, and some are not. There are a number of vets using homeopathic remedies, and some have added products containing transfer factor to their line up. If you’re interested in boosting the immune system of your cat with transfer factors, check with your veterinarian first before doing so.
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