cat “dandruff”

hi everyone! I've been noticing that my cat has these white flakes on her back that look like dandruff. it's become more noticeable in the past couple of days. i looked it up and got so many different possibilities (dehydration, needs brushing and coconut oil, mites , she's not grooming enough). i included a picture and would appreciate any tips about what it actually is and what i can do for her.

Hello and thank you for your question.  Skin is being replaced with new skin all the time, and the top layers of skin flake off.  Usually, this is an imperceptable process. However, sometimes the most superficial skin cells come off in bigger, more noticable chunks called dandruff.  This is more likely if the skin is

• Exposed eg to heat or low humidity (beware central heating)
• Damaged eg by old / healing wounds (manifesting as scabs)
• Ungroomed (eg because of obesity or arthritis)
• infected with ringworm, fleas, mites or other parasites
• affected by hormonal problems (hypothyroidism) or some rare autoimmune disease)
• Affected by allergy
• Affected by nutritional 'imbalances' affecting the ability of the cells to cling together
• Stressed
• Suffering a genetic condition called primary seborrhoea

Your vet will try to work with you to get to the bottom of whats causing the problem in your cats' case. Wishing you and this beauty the best of luck.