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Acute renal failure is actually more common in young dogs and cats, because they’re more active and more likely to get into poisons around the house and garden. Chronic renal failure is usually age-related, but there’s no evidence that it’s related to food, except in the few cases where it’s secondary to diabetes (actually secondary to hypertension, which is often secondary to diabetes), which can be caused by feeding obligate carnivores a high-carb diet. I have an ancient cat who has been diabetic for 2 years and in chronic renal failure for 4 years. Needless to say, his renal failure is not secondary to diabetes, and the diabetes actually appeared a few months after I switched him to a very high protein diet (heavily supplemented Gerber’s all-meat baby foods), though there’s no reason to suspect a connection.

I participate in a large internet group devoted to chronic kidney failure in cats, and have never seen any evidence or even suspicion voiced, that kidney failure is appearing at “younger and younger ages”. My cat was 17 when he was diagnosed with very early stage, still asymptomatic kidney failure. The veterinary nephrologist who is a consultant to the group (and who is a vet school professor who teaches nephrology) has never indicated any suspicion of a connection between high-carb foods and kidney failure. In her lecture notes, which are posted online, she lists the causes of renal damage as: “immune-mediated inflammation, infection, ischemia, nephrotoxins, congenital abnormalities, heredofamilial abnormalities, trauma, postrenal obstruction, neoplasia, hypertension, diabetes, electrolyte disturbances” http://www.vetsites.vin.com/Kidney/CRF.doc

There are a lot of good reasons to feed cats and dogs high protein diets, but warding off kidney failure isn’t one of them.

There is actually a good reason a lot of dogs have renal failure and in many cases goes undiagnosed -- tick diseases. More vets need to check for TBD's when they have animals presenting with renal failure. I was on a very large TBD list and the number of dogs of all ages with renal failure who turned out to have a TBD was astounding.

The vet on the list, who happened to be an expert on TBD's, said it was his sincere desire that more vets would test for TBD's in the dogs with renal failure but many are not putting two and two together.

This hit home because I had a dog with Cushings who was also showing renal failure when by happenstance a substitute vet recommended a complete senior blood workup on her and the upshot was she did have undiagnosed Ehrlicha and Ehrlicha takes a huge toll on the kidneys. The snap test is unreliable in testing for tick disease. So yes, there is a lot of reasons for renal failure, but contaminated food should not be one of them.