Category: Insulin resistance

Is laminitis linked to rising temperatures?

Posted on: March 26, 2017

Robin and Kurt graze May 1, 2016. The heat and humidity of 2016 nearly killed these two laminitis horses.

Robin and Kurt graze May 1, 2016. The heat and humidity of 2016 nearly killed these two laminitic horses.

Post reviewed Nov. 26, 2022

There are many theories as to what is driving the insulin-resistant form of laminitis to record highs. The answer may be rising temperatures.

Researchers from The Netherlands published a study in March 2017 linking human diabetes to increased outdoor temperatures.

The researchers concluded that a 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature could account for more than 100,000 new diabetes cases in humans per year in the U.S. alone. The study appeared in the open access journal BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care.

Laminitis is on the rise throughout the world, according to many sources. Equine veterinarians repeatedly have chosen laminitis as their biggest challenge on surveys. And an annual U.K. equine survey estimated in 2016 that laminitis ranked second in equine illnesses in the country, behind lameness in general, and accounted for 6.8 percent of illness.

The insulin form of laminitis far outpaces other forms of the disease.

The Netherlands study authors took note of recent data showing that patients with type 2 diabetes who were exposed to moderate cold for only 10 days improved insulin sensitivity. They attributed this improvement to cold exposure activating brown adipose tissue, which combusts large amount of lipids to generate heat.

The researchers described their study as the first to assess the association of outdoor temperature with diabetes incidence and the prevalence of raised fasting blood glucose on a national and global level. They used 14-year longitudinal state-level data from the U.S. and showed the overall diabetes incidence rate is higher in warmer years. For each 1 degree Celsius increase in temperature, they found an overall increase in diabetes incidence of 0.314 per 1,000.

NASA reported Jan. 18 that the Earth’s 2016 surface temperatures were the warmest since modern recordkeeping began in 1880. Globally averaged temperatures in 2016 were 1.78 degrees Fahrenheit (0.99 degrees Celsius) warmer than the mid-20th century mean. This makes 2016 the third year in a row to set a new record for global average surface temperatures, NASA said.

At the end of the summer of 2016, an unbearably hot summer that took a big toll on my two laminitic horses, I looked at what the future holds for my location near St. Louis, Missouri, according to two groups of scientists.

By 2030 (not so far away), St. Louis will have 46 days with a heat index above 105 degrees, a sharp increase from the total of 12 days in 2000, according to Climate Central. That’s a month and a half of dangerous weather. By 2050, the number will jump to 63.

Florida, Texas and Arizona are looking at even bigger increases. McAllen, Texas, will have 179 days (more than half a year) at that level by 2050, the group says.

By 2100, St. Louis’ average summer high will be 96.69 degrees, up from the current average of 86.85 degrees, a terrifying jump.

Climate Central looked at summer temperatures since 1970 and based its projections on current greenhouse gas emissions trends continuing.

The Union of Concerned Scientists looked at weather changes in St. Louis from 1946 to 2011.

Among its findings: On very hot, humid nights, the temperature rose 2.1 degrees and the dew point increased .6 degrees.

On hot, dry nights, the temperature increased 4.4 degrees and the dew point increased 7.7 degrees. Not sure why those would be still be called “dry” nights.

As for humans and diabetes, currently, more than 34 million Americans have diabetes, and one in four doesn’t know it, according to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control. Another 88 million Americans have pre-diabetes.

Iron overload likely caused my horses’ laminitis

Posted on: July 12, 2015

Toxicology test on horses' iron level

Toxicology test on horses’ iron level.

Hematology test on horses' iron level

Hematology test on horses’ iron level.

Post reviewed Nov. 27, 2022

In “Clue” like fashion, I’m declaring the cause of my six horses’ laminitis over the last 18 years as an excess intake of iron from weeds, trace mineral blocks and well water, leading to insulin resistance and the insulin form of laminitis.

The insulin resistance and laminitis were exacerbated by me following veterinary guidance to restrict the horses’ hay, keep the horses on dry lots and prevent the horses from eating so-called “lush grass.” I now believe these moves were the exact opposite of what was needed to get the horses’ metabolism functioning properly.

In the game of “Clue,” I’d get immediate confirmation of whether my assertion is correct. Unfortunately, with the laminitis, I will receive no such feedback.

But a cascade of events led me to this conclusion.

In October 2014, I needed to have my leaking well fixed (the water pressure was down considerably, and a pond had formed to the west).

But I also wanted to have my horses’ iron levels tested at Kansas State University’s lab. I suspected iron as the cause of the horses’ laminitis for a decade but had no proof.

A previous iron test done through the local zoo did not provide useful results.

Several experts recommended KSU for these tests (I’m not making such a recommendation at the moment). I was hoping to do a three-test panel of serum iron, TIBC and ferritin (a hematology test) and a serum trace mineral panel (a toxicology test). I admit I didn’t know what I was doing. I wanted some data.

There wasn’t enough money to do the tests and fix the well.

The iron tests for my two living horses totaled $400, including my vet’s fees. I chose to do the tests and hope for the best with the well.

My vet didn’t provide this iron test as a regular service but agreed to draw the blood if I did the mailing.

I sent the package in a vet-provided cooled envelope by overnight shipping on a Thursday. KSU said shipping on Thursday was fine as long as the package arrived Friday morning. I don’t know what happened to the package after it got under way. I don’t know when it arrived or was tested, and all may have gone as planned.

I received results from KSU that suggested my horses had toxic levels of iron (see images at top).

A university vet who provided comments on the tests said the toxic level “could be indicative of artifactual hemolysis” within the submitted sample. In other words, the blood got too warm or tainted in transit.

I talked to a lab person by phone, and the blood was indeed considered compromised.

I personally believed the results were correct as far as the horses having too much iron but couldn’t be sure, and I couldn’t do the tests again due to the cost.

I had my own iron level tested through a company I found online, Lab Corp, for considerably less money, and my iron level was normal, making me think the iron theory had come up short.

My sister told me my iron results did not seem normal, given that all the women in my family were anemic. She said I likely was anemic, too, and was being affected by the iron in the water.

Meanwhile, also in 2014, veterinarian Frank Reilly, a leading advocate for laminitic horses, posted on his website the iron levels of common pasture weeds (scroll down to the tab titled “Equine Insulin Resistance High Iron“). The iron levels are really high. Excess iron can fuel insulin resistance. His site provides plenty of research on that, too.

I knew my horses had been eating more weeds than anything else in recent years because I had intentionally ignored the grass, thinking that less grass was better. The grass went away, and the horses ate the weeds.

I was suspicious of the well water having too much iron, since the water turns everything rust colored and has eaten through the bottom of all my aluminum tanks. But I still didn’t have proof there. A water test in 2005 showed nothing suspicious.

I did find out that the horses’ trace mineral blocks were 25 percent iron, and I threw those away in 2012.

In November 2014, I emailed Dr. Reilly, asking how one might reduce the iron level in horses through supplements. He spent his Thanksgiving holiday investigating this idea. He emailed back that curcumin and ginkgo could reduce the iron level, and he provided suggested amounts and where to buy it. Purebulk.com sells the curcumin (250 grams, $70 at the time — it’s gone up). Reilly suggested feeding 1/2 tablespoon a day. Starwest Botanicals sells ginkgo leaf cut and sifted (1 pound bag). Reilly suggested feeding 1 tablespoon in the morning and 1 tablespoon in the evening.

After giving the horses the two supplements for a few weeks, I stopped because my gelding Kurt was breaking out in drenching sweats as we entered yet another frigid winter. We eventually figured out the sweats were caused by thyroid powder (no longer given).

Also, a friend had sent me a camping filter for the well head to filter out iron, but I don’t use the well head during the winter due to the hose always being frozen. I carry buckets of hot water outside. So I didn’t put on the filter.

All these things nagged at me, but polar vortex winters tend to keep one busy.

I considered putting the horses back on the curcumin and ginkgo, but I wanted to do the iron tests again to see if the previous tests were correct. Does one want to chelate iron from a horse that doesn’t have excess iron?

There was no money to repeat the tests, and the situation with the well was becoming more of an emergency.

Everything came together in May 2015, when I finally had the well fixed, and a well company employee blurted out, “You must have an iron problem” when telling me how deep the well was. The casing is 350 feet deep (very deep) and collects iron all along the shaft, which gets transferred to the water as the water sloshes through, according to the well guy, an industry veteran.

The irony is not lost on me that fixing the well gave me more information than the iron tests.

Climate change may be causing laminitis

Posted on: July 12, 2015

This paddock changed from sand to grass over 18 years before erupting in weeds in 2015.

Post reviewed Nov. 27, 2022

Climate change is having at least two effects on vegetation that may be increasing the incidence of laminitis in horses.

First, weeds are proliferating due to increased carbon dioxide, rain and heat in the atmosphere, according to scientists at Purdue University and France’s Climate-Environment-Society consortium in Europe.

The global concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — the primary driver of recent climate change — has reached 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time in recorded history, according to NASA data.

One carbon dioxide expert (Dr. Charles Miller) says these CO2 values are more than 100 ppm higher than at any time in the last one million years (and maybe higher than any time in the last 25 million years).

Second, the increased acid in the atmosphere from coal plant and auto emissions is leading to higher acid in rainwater, which is changing the makeup of soil, depleting nutrients such as magnesium, and giving an even bigger advantage to weeds over native grasses.

Weeds have more nitrogen in their makeup in general, and nitrogen has been implicated in laminitis.

Perhaps more important, weeds hold a lot more iron, and excess iron is known to increase insulin resistance.

Dr. Frank Reilly, an equine veterinarian in Pennsylvania and leading advocate for laminitic horses, tested common pasture weeds for their iron level and posted the results on his website (scroll down to the tab titled “Equine Insulin Resistance High Iron“) in 2014 along with photos of the weeds. He said horses will seek out chickweed, and its super high iron content causes a huge surge in insulin levels.

He lists several scientific articles that discuss how iron drives insulin resistance.

In my state of Missouri, the soil is largely red clay, and the red color in the soil is due primarily to iron oxides, according to the USDA.

The weeds in my state have access to more iron to begin with, so acidic soil and weed proliferation are a recipe for disaster for a horse here.

Add to that the well-meaning but misguided addition of iron to everything horses eat.

My horses’ trace mineral blocks, which they had access to from 1997 to 2012, were 25 percent iron, according to the manufacturer’s website. I threw them away in 2012 and wish I had never heard of mineral blocks.

Applying weed killer to pasture for horse with laminitis

Posted on: July 12, 2015

One of the horse pastures covered with weeds on May 31, 2015.

The same pasture on July 12, 2015, a month after application of weed killer.

I can answer the question: Can you use weed killer on grass grazed by laminitic horses?

Yes.

Over three weeks in June 2015, I sprayed my whole farm using GrazonNext, which was recommended by my local feed store.

I have 8 fenced acres, plus 2 unfenced acres.

I sprayed the weed killer manually, walking around with a 2 gallon sprayer.

The feed store suggested I give the weed killer two hours of dry time before the next rainstorm hit. Given the fact that we had the wettest June ever, timing that out for each field was the hard part.

The cost for the weed killer and sprayer was less than $200, according to my memory, since the receipt has disappeared from my desk. Horse owners probably can find these products cheaper online, but I wanted the help of the feed store.

I wish I did this years ago, but I kept getting instructions from veterinarians that my horses should NOT eat grass. The last thing I thought I needed was good grass.

I’ve done a complete 180 on that. After I read equine nutritionist Juliet Getty’s post on how insulin resistant horses should be grazing all the time to turn around the disease, my goal is to ensure that the horses have great grass that they want to eat.

Research has shown horses on dry lots with weeds develop laminitis, though scientists often blame the weeds’ nonstructural carbohydrate level.

Veterinarian Frank Reilly warns that the high iron level in weeds can lead to insulin resistance.

My horses lived for years on dry lots with only weeds for nibbling, and the laminitic bouts happened over and over.

I won’t use fertilizer to improve the fields. Too many horse owners have reported their horses foundering right after pastures were fertilized. Perhaps the nitrogen in the fertilizer triggers the laminitis.

But I was willing to apply weed killer.

My farm in May 2015 was covered in weeds despite me mowing constantly. I was in panic mode when I went to the feed store for help on May 31.

GrazonNext is designed for pastures, and animals can go right back on the fields after the fields are sprayed, according to the maker.

I can’t swear 100 percent that it’s safe for horses to eat because my horses wouldn’t touch the vegetation after I sprayed it until after a few rainstorms.

I can say that we had no issues, other than some grumpy horse faces during the spraying process.

The feed store figured out how much I should use: 4 ounces per 2 gallon sprayer. A 2 gallon sprayer was supposed to cover 5,000 square feet (an area 50 feet by 100 feet).

I was fairly careful in measuring out the 4 ounces as I refilled the sprayer each time.

I didn’t measure off the feet I was spraying.

Within hours of spraying, the dandelions and other weeds keeled over.

GrazonNext won’t kill crabgrass, which is very high in iron. Some of my fields have patches of crabgrass, so we have some work left to do, but I’m really pleased with the fields, as are the horses.

I let the weed killer stay on the weeds about a week before I mowed (another recommendation by the feed store).

In fact, the best advice the feed store manager gave me was, “Quit mowing and start spraying.”

After the weeds died, it was much easier to mow the fields.

Some spots were left bare because only weeds had been growing in those areas. But we had a lot of rain in June and July, and those areas came back with grass, a big surprise to me. If the rain hadn’t been so well timed, the bare spots would have remained, I suspect.

I did a lot of research on this weed killer, because I wanted to spray it on the unfenced areas where deer and rabbits graze in the evening. The product appears to be safe for those animals, too. The deer and rabbits look unfazed.

I did notice one thing in my research that may matter to people who use manure to fertilize a garden. This weed killer has a residual effect. If a horse ingests plants with the weed killer on them, the pesticide will be in the manure and will still be active. If the manure is used on a garden, it will kill vegetables in the garden. Someone reviewing the product online said she found that out the hard way.

The feed store manager said I likely won’t have to apply the weed killer every year.

Some weeds have popped back up already, but they look dead on arrival. They don’t bloom. They just shrivel up.

I also have been applying lime to the fields. I almost believe liming is more important than applying weed killer because the lime lowers the acid in the soil, which slows the development of weeds. Weeds thrive in acidic soil.

The horses are eating the limed grass more than the other grass.

Feed more hay to laminitic horse, equine nutritionist says

Posted on: June 14, 2015

Restricting Kurt's food intake has not reduced his girth.

Restricting Kurt’s food intake has not reduced his girth. Quite the opposite. During the first half of 2015, Kurt was given a flake of hay during the morning and evening and another overnight. He did have access to pastures, but there was no grass from January to March and the flies drove him into the shed from April to June (despite him being fly sprayed).

Guilt drives a lot of my laminitis research. I’m always looking to clear my conscience. Did I cause my horses’ laminitis? Or did something else do so?

Since 1998, when my first laminitis case occurred, I’ve routinely paid vets to heap on more guilt. Each farm call has led to the same conclusion: My horses are obese; thus, I must be overfeeding them and causing the insulin resistance and laminitis.

Now, a new article suggests my horses are obese because I’m underfeeding them.

I’m still guilty, just of a different crime.

The article is written by equine nutritionist Juliet Getty, Ph.D., who makes her money consulting so she’s not going to go too far out on a limb unless she’s convinced she’s correct.

The article is titled, “Can the Damaged Insulin Resistant Horse Be Fixed?”

It’s long, and I’m just picking out a few things, but the whole article is worth reading at least twice.

Getty says we’ve created the insulin resistant horse by doing all the wrong things in the name of helping.

She urges owners to give horses free choice, low-carb hay, so horses eat constantly and slowly, as they were intended to eat. As in, horses should never be without hay.

To those, including me, who blurt out, “That’s going to cost a lot of money,” she says it will save money in the end because the horse will eat less. My horses poop on their leftover hay so I have issues there, but she would probably say I need to work on how I feed my horses.

She also suggests turning horses out on pasture (preferably after testing the sugar level in the grass, which I personally think is a waste of time since the sugar level in pasture rises and falls all day long).

Getty says, “Horses who graze on pasture 24/7 will eat far less grass than those who are only allowed to graze on pasture for a few hours each day, with hay provided the rest of the time.”

She includes caveats such as it might be good to ease a horse into having hay full time by using a couple of slow feeders that are always kept full.

She suggests not stalling a horse, which may be out of the question for a lot of horse owners, but Getty feels that’s a big factor for horse health.

Getty doesn’t address calories. I would argue that today’s hay seems to have an excessive amount of calories (about 2,000 calories per flake), but I’m guessing she feels a horse will stop eating when it has enough calories.

She concludes that the only way to fix an insulin resistant horse is to help it return to its natural state. She emphasizes that continuing down the same path of restricting food will get the same results: more insulin resistance.

I would add that it is possible to get a horse to lose weight by limiting its food and exercising it like crazy. But the result is temporary. The horse is not healthy, and adding a little more hay will make that horse balloon up.

Other factors that Getty mentions are addressing inflammation and lowering iron intake.

I worry that a horse with insulin resistance from excess iron may not improve if it is given free-choice hay and it continues to shovel in the hay. The horse may get worse.

My takeaway from the article is it needs to be embraced in its entirety. Helping an insulin resistant laminitic horse requires addressing all the possible issues that are causing the insulin resistance, not just forage intake.

Getty’s suggestions are revolutionary. She’s going against the advice of perhaps all leading laminitis researchers and vets.

Some of the top speakers at laminitis conferences have visited my farm (as friends of my former vet) and advised:

— Kill the grass on the pastures completely;
— Dry lot the horses on the existing paddocks and rent out the pastures to thoroughbreds (my horses would have loved that);
— Break up the 2-acre pastures into tiny pastures to limit access and improve the grass;
— Move.

Over the years, I found that restricting the horses’ food and dry lotting them made them fatter. And miserable. And the laminitis continued.

I refused to listen to laminitis researchers who were anti-grazing.

Horses closely related to my own were on bigger and much lusher pastures within a few miles of my farm, and those horses were thin and healthy. It convinced me that the grass itself was not the problem.

I wanted my horses walking constantly, covering a lot of ground, taking in a steady stream of forage and keeping busy.

In 2007, I fenced my two ungrazed lower fields (an additional 4 acres to the overgrazed 4 acres already fenced) and turned my remaining horses loose. I felt even more guilty, if possible, but at least my horses didn’t hate me. In the end, there was no uptick in laminitic cases. If anything, the bouts dropped.

I haven’t seen a groundswell of criticism of Getty’s article. But it is a study in contrasts with advice from other experts.

Kathryn Watts, retired plant scientist, creator of the safergrass.org website and a onetime hugely popular speaker, used to have a PDF on her consulting page that started out:

“If you insist on keeping an obese, non-exercised, laminitic horse on pasture at least 12 hours per day all year long … I cannot help you or your horse. My pasture management advice will include limiting grass intake, increasing exercise and completely eliminating access to pasture during periods when environmental conditions make it impossible to control grass sugar content by cultural practices. If you cannot or will not limit intake, it will be a waste of your money and my time to give you a complete pasture management program.”

Thehorse.com posted an article June 8, 2015, on feeding the laminitic horse that offers tips from Jennifer A. Wrigley, CVT, of New Bolton Center at the University of Pennsylvania. The school founded the now shuttered international laminitis conference in 2001.

Wrigley’s tips include restricting hay for the laminitic horse and perhaps dry lotting the horse.

Those of us who dieted heavily in our teens and 20s will attest to the counterproductive effect of restricting food intake. It makes one want food more. I never looked at the science behind why dieting made me crazy, but the craziness was undeniable. Getty has provided the science.

Laminitic horses already go through hell.

After reading Getty’s article, I realize we have been keeping our horses in that hell perpetually.

No guilt there.

Looking for the thrifty gene in laminitic horses

Posted on: November 18, 2012

Kurt and Robin are substantially overweight, whereas their nephew was skinny for years on a nearby pasture.

Kurt and Robin are substantially overweight (in mid-October 2012), whereas their similarly built cousin was skinny for years on a nearby pasture that was by all standards very green and lush.

I have often heard researchers refer to a “thrifty” gene in horses that develop laminitis.

Researchers say this gene may be the reason that some horses founder and some don’t. My farm is surrounded by pastures far larger than my own that are dotted with horses — some relatives of my horses — that haven’t foundered, so I’m skeptical of this thrifty gene, but it would explain some things.

I’ve heard a couple of laminitis researchers theorize that horses that traveled from Europe to America by boat as America was colonized had to be able to get by on little food to survive. The researchers suggested we owe the birth of our country to those horses’ thriftiness.

The website of the International Museum of the Horse paints a grim picture of Spaniards shipping their horses to the New World in the 1600s, and let’s remember that this was only 400 years ago. Hard to believe.

Apparently, horses were shipped in slings. This took their weight off their feet and allowed them to swing with the roll of the ship. The dark, damp atmosphere in the boats and lack of exercise often killed half the horses, and the dead animals were buried at sea. Some say this is how the section of the Atlantic Ocean named the Horse Latitudes got its name, though others say this is folklore.

Getting the horses off the ship was hazardous, as well. They were lowered by sling into the water and made to swim ashore by people in row boats.

Laminitis researchers suggest that the same thrifty genes that served horses well in hardship are now killing them because the improved grass and hay created for cows is too rich for the systems of these horses, and they develop laminitis (as do cows).

I would buy the thrifty gene theory more if I could explain why none of my parents’ Connemaras (the ancestors of my horses) foundered. Similarly, I don’t know of any siblings of my horses that have foundered, though many live on pasture. My mare Angel moved to my current farm as a 3-year-old in 1997 and got very fat in a year. I sent her to Ohio for three years as a broodmare, and immediately she dropped a tremendous amount of weight, even though she got pregnant. She was stalled some of the time but she also got out on pasture each day. I don’t think her access to grass there was much different than her life at my farm, because, here, she had almost no grass, sharing a 2-acre pasture with four other horses round the clock. One could argue she got more grass while away. She was very thin when she returned home from Ohio at the end of 2001. She got fat and foundered by February 2004, a little over two years later, in the middle of winter even as I worried about laminitis from having problems with my other horses and tried to maintain an appropriate diet for all of the horses.

At any rate, I’ve been searching online for this equine thrifty gene. Mostly, it seems like the thrifty gene is a theory, and scientists are trying to find which gene is the culprit.

I saw a few references to a likely thrifty gene in an article by laminitis researcher Philip Johnson at the University of Missouri’s vet school. He wrote the article in 2009 for the Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology.

Johnson’s article covers the fact that horses that evolved naturally would go through the process of putting on excess weight during the fall in the form of stored fat to get through harsh winters.

He says herbivores, including horses, contain a critical survival mechanism — increased secretion of proopiomelanocortin (POMC) peptides in the fall — that stimulates the appetite and leads to other changes that result in fat storage in preparation for winter, when food tends to be relatively scarce.

This short-term addition of fat was fine historically. Johnson says it’s the chronic persistence of fat that leads to problems, and owners today generally keep their horses too fat.

He talks about how wild horses survived by covering a great distance daily to find little grass that was relatively low in sugar. He says today there is good evidence that providing higher sugar rations leads to diminished insulin sensitivity.

Higher sugar combined with less exercise and “grossly excessive” feed rations is what is getting horses in trouble today, he says. And he points out that today’s forage is designed to make farm animals gain weight quickly.

He says there are few statistics on current horse obesity, but one study found 45 percent of 319 randomly selected horses to be fat or very fat. That compares to 25.8 percent rate of obesity in cats and 25.2 percent rate in dogs, he says. I’ve seen other numbers that put cat and dog obesity much higher in 2012.

Johnson points out that laminitis is seen in two forms: one that leads to separation of the hoof lamellar interface, the tissue that connects the hoof to the bone inside the foot; and one due to chronic remodeling of the foot resulting from endocrine disorders (others have compared this remodeling to cancer-like growth).

Johnson says the endocrine abnormalities that are most often seen in horses with chronic laminitis are insulin resistance and excessive levels of corticosteroids. He says insulin resistance is likely an important component of thriftiness — horses with insulin resistance can survive on far less food.

As for corticosteroids, the corticosteroid named cortisol, a glucocorticoid due to its role in sugar metabolism, is secreted by the adrenal glands. Its primary roles are to increase blood sugar, suppress the immune system and aid in metabolism. Stress can lead to elevated cortisol levels, which can lead to weight gain.

Johnson said that an enzyme called 11-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-1 (11-HSD1), which converts inactive circulating cortisone to cortisol in localized tissue, is an important component of human metabolic syndrome and it is seen in increased amounts in the hoof lamellar interface (the connective tissue between the hoof and the bone) in laminitic hooves as well in the cresty necks of horses with equine metabolic syndrome. He said this enzyme is likely one of these thrifty genes.

Johnson also reviews the fact that insulin itself is toxic to the hoof lamellar interface, and raising a horse’s insulin level can result in laminitis.

My feeling is that, yes, all of these thrifty genes may behave in a way that leads to laminitis, but something has to trigger them to behave in that manner. If horses of similar genetic background can live on grass nearby, what is triggering these thrifty genes to behave in a problematic manner in my horses? What is triggering them in the horses of others?

Should laminitic horses get a thyroid supplement?

Posted on: June 9, 2012

Kurt's sides are lumpy despite years of taking thyroid supplements to boost his metabolism.

Kurt’s sides are lumpy despite years of taking thyroid supplements to boost his metabolism.

Editor’s note on June 15, 2015: I wrote this post before reading Juliet Getty’s post on treating the insulin resistant horse. Thyroid supplement may help the laminitic horse lose a little weight, but I think it’s a poor substitute for helping a horse restore balance in its diet and life. Even before I read Getty’s post, I had taken Kurt off thyroid powder because it was making him break out in a drenching sweat. It took me a while to figure out the cause of the sweat. The day I stopped the thyroid powder, the sweat went away. Giving thyroid powder to a laminitic horse may cause unintended consequences. I’m leaving the article up, because the reporting of the research is accurate.

Laminitic horses often are put on the thyroid supplement levothyroxine sodium (commonly sold under the brand name Thyroid-L).

While it can be an effective component for treating the insulin form of laminitis, the reasons for using it have fluctuated over the years.

The thyroid is located in the neck of all mammals. The gland secretes the hormone thyroxine, or T4, and to a lesser extent triiodothyronine, or T3. These hormones predominantly affect metabolism, but they also influence growth, development and body temperature.

The pituitary gland and hypothalamus in the brain also play a role in regulating thyroid levels. The anterior pituitary gland releases thyrotropin, a thyroid stimulating hormone referred to as TSH. The hypothalamus releases thyrotropin releasing hormone, or TRH, which affects thyrotropin.

Low thyroid levels may be the result of problems in the thyroid, hypothalamus or pituitary gland, or all three.

According to Nat Messer, DVM, at an AAEP meeting in December 1998, hypothyroidism is uncommon in horses, but widespread misdiagnosis of thyroid dysfunction results in more than $750,000 worth of thyroid hormone supplement being sold for use in horses annually.

So, why have we been using thyroid supplements for laminitic and foundered horses? There was a time when laminitic horses that were “easy keepers” were presumed to have hypothyroidism because their body condition, particularly regional fat deposits, mirrored that of dogs with hypothyroidism, plus the horses had low or low-normal resting serum T3 and T4 concentrations.

But, in a 2006 proceedings paper for the AAEP, Nicholas Frank, DVM, admitted that scientists had come to realize that low thyroid levels were a consequence rather than a cause of the horse’s metabolic issues and may even be the result of use of phenylbutazone, or bute.

That surprised me. In more than 15 years of treating laminitic horses with bute, I was never told that bute might be lowering my horses’ thyroid levels.

Still, many owners of laminitic horses, including me, have been told to try thyroid supplement because it may help speed up the horse’s metabolism so the horse can lose weight, which hopefully will lower the horse’s risk for having a relapse of laminitis. Losing weight is often a battle for foundered horses because they are too lame to exercise and their food needs drop off dramatically due to the fact that they don’t move much.

I can tell you from personal experience that Thyroid-L doesn’t always help a horse lose weight — my horses got 2 grams of Thyroid-L a day for years, and they both were obese.

Where levothyroxine sodium does appear to help is with controlling insulin levels, though insulin’s role in laminitis was only solidified by research in 2007, so Thyroid-L may have been silently doing some good on the insulin front for years while being prescribed as a weight-loss treatment.

In a study published in 2008 in the American Journal of Veterinary Research, Frank said administration of levothyroxine sodium led to weight loss and increased insulin sensitivity in adult horses with healthy thyroid gland functioning. He also said levothyroxine sodium significantly increased the rate of insulin disposal.

Note that the amount of T3 and T4 in the bloodstream regulates the release of TSH by the pituitary gland, so low levels of T3 and T4, for whatever reason, make the pituitary release more TSH. There is no shortage of studies that talk about the link between a high TSH level and insulin resistance in humans.

In a German study published in 2000 in Clinical Endocrinology, researchers concluded that study subjects with normal thyroid function (euthyroidism) but elevated TSH were more obese, had higher triglycerides and an increased likelihood for metabolic syndrome, also known as insulin resistance syndrome.

The concern with the insulin form of laminitis is how much insulin and glucose is circulating in the horse’s bloodstream. If Chris Pollitt’s Australian research team is correct, elevated insulin levels in a horse can lead to the excess insulin in the blood errantly binding with the wrong receptors in a horse’s feet (insulin-like growth factor 1 receptors, rather than insulin receptors, which don’t appear to exist in horses’ feet), leading to out-of-control hoof growth, not unlike cancer, destroying the structure of the hoof wall, coffin bone and laminae.

If Thyroid L can lead to faster disposal of insulin, that alone might be a reason to add it to the diet of the laminitic horse.

At the same AAEP meeting in 1998, Messer addressed some additional factors that may affect thyroid levels, including nutrition. He said short periods of food deprivation can lower thyroid levels, as can diet composition.

Messer and associates conducted a study at the University of Missouri (published in 1995) in which food was withheld from six adult horses with normal thyroid function for four days. Hormone levels decreased more than 50 percent over that time. When the horses returned to a normal eating schedule, their thyroid levels returned to normal.

In a laminitic horse, thyroid levels might be lowered by bute and food deprivation, which are normal treatments for laminitis, and the resulting elevated TSH levels may increase insulin resistance. Elevated insulin would cause even more damage to the feet than had happened already. Given this scenario, it’s easy to see why owners might see some improvement giving a thyroid supplement to a laminitic horse.

Is there a link between mares coming into season and laminitis?

Posted on: April 14, 2012

I’ve had a few interesting conversations by email and phone with a fellow owner of laminitic horses. This horse owner noticed that her mare’s laminitis bouts seem tied to the horse coming in season. The mare does better in winter when she goes out of season for an extended period of time. In fact, the mare often does better when environmental conditions are favorable for the mare to do worse, which is what made this owner look beyond the usual list of so-called “laminitis triggers” since that list wasn’t serving her well.

Estrogen rises in a mare during the preparation of the egg and drops if the egg is not fertilized and the uterine lining is shed.

A possible link between laminitis and rising estrogen makes sense since we know the most prevalent form of laminitis today is the insulin resistance form, and estrogen is a major player in insulin resistance.

I wasn’t looking for this link when my mares foundered. If I noticed a link between Angel’s cycles and her laminitis when she had her first bout in 2004, I didn’t write it down.

I did notice as a general rule that Angel came in season far more than most normal mares, and Goldie, her mother, also had that tendency. Goldie foundered before Angel. Those two mares had my worst cases.

Both mares stopped cycling after several bad bouts of laminitis. It was as if their body knew to shut down that process completely.

When I wrote my original article on laminitis and estrogen, the research on whether more mares developed laminitis was mixed. One study that reviewed a broad range of previous laminitis studies said the results were inconclusive.

If you look at this logically, here’s what we know in both the human and horse world on estrogen as it might relate to laminitis:

1) Young woman are reaching puberty earlier, and many researchers say that is due to things such as the estrogen mimics in plastics and other materials that are prevalent in a child’s world today. It only makes sense that some of these same plastics are in a young horse’s world, as well.

2) Dr. Mehmet Oz defined the link between fat, estrogen and insulin resistance in humans this way: Estrogen causes the body to make more insulin, and more insulin creates belly fat. Increased fat cells make estrogen.

Many horses that develop insulin resistance and laminitis get the cresty neck that scientists call “regional adiposity,” along with fat deposits over their tail and in their sheath area. Maybe for horses, their estrogen-related “belly fat” isn’t in their belly? Maybe it is in these three areas. We certainly know that horses are much fatter today than 100 years ago. Veterinarians refer to this as an epidemic. Are we feeding horses more? I am not feeding my horses more than my parents fed their Connemara herd 30 years ago; in fact, I’m feeding far less. I know this, because I often fed for my parents. I gave their horses several bales of hay at a meal rather than counting out flakes as I do now. And I fed grain — the kind of grain full of oats — by the coffee can rather than by the half cup, as I do now. My parents’ herd was made up of relatives of my herd. My parents had maybe 10 Connemaras at any one time on 14 acres. I had six on 8 acres — that seems fairly even. None of my parents’ Connemaras ever foundered. All of mine did. None of my parents’ horses were obese or had a cresty neck. All of mine are obese and have the neck.

There has to be something else going on in these horses now. Elevated estrogen caused by something environmental seems logical.

3) I continue to look at excess iron’s role in my horses’ cases. I threw out my horses’ trace mineral blocks over the winter because I discovered the blocks were 20 percent iron.

In looking for studies on iron and estrogen, I took a close look at a study published in 2001 by the Stehlin Foundation for Cancer Research in Texas that looked at iron’s role in estrogen-induced cancer. Remember, scientists now believe that laminitis makes the hoof wall proliferate in an out-of-control manner similar to cancer. The Texas study said that elevated dietary intake of iron raised the incidence of cancer in rats and hamsters and that adding estrogen increased iron accumulation in hamsters. The study suggested that, since other studies have shown that elevated body iron storage increases the risk of several cancers in humans, interfering with iron accumulation in tissues might offer an option for cancer prevention. I wonder if anyone has tried that in laminitic horses?

Could estrogen exposure play a role in laminitis?

Posted on: March 31, 2012

Two stories caught my attention in the last few days: an article about how young girls are now developing much earlier than what was previously considered normal and a report that autism cases have risen dramatically.

Anytime I see what appears to be evidence of environmental factors wreaking havoc on the body, I feel compelled to open the story, because I am convinced environmental factors led to my horses becoming insulin resistant and laminitic. Note that estrogen comes up over and over in the first article. Estrogen causes the body to make more insulin, and more insulin creates belly fat. Increased fat cells make estrogen. Thus, excess estrogen creates a never-ending cycle of insulin-resistance. As far as horses go, research published in 2007 showed that elevated insulin causes laminitis in horses, and a study published in 2011 suggests how that elevated insulin causes laminitis. These two breakthroughs have made horse owners focus on trying to fix laminitis through dietary changes as well as trim techniques.

The story on the girls developing early says animal studies show that exposure to some environmental chemicals can cause bodies to mature early. Of particular concern are endocrine-disrupters, such as estrogen mimics.

The story says one particular concern is the effect of simultaneous exposure to many estrogen-mimics, including the compound bisphenol A, or BPA, used in everything from plastic bottles and metal cans to cash register receipts. The story says more than a million pounds of BPA are released into the environment each year.

Parents of girls developing early are being told this development is the new normal. Is that an acceptable explanation? Would that not be a little like saying laminitis is the new normal for horses?

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released numbers on March 29, 2012, that say about 1 in 88 children in the United States has autism, and the prevalence of the condition has risen nearly 80 percent over the past decade.

The report said the cause of autism remains unknown. I did a quick search for BPA and autism. No shortage of articles there. Looks like autism groups have been suspicious of BPA for years.

I have never given a second thought to what type of plastic or coating was used in feed bags, buckets or other plastic materials around the farm. When I’ve looked at environmental factors, I was looking at things in the water, ground and fencing material.

It would seem plausible that some estrogen mimic was causing horses to have high levels of estrogen, leading to development of insulin resistance and laminitis. That certainly would coincide with anecdotal reports that more mares get laminitis than geldings, given that mares start out with more estrogen. I thought testing for elevated iron on my farm was going to be hard.

How to grind flax seed for laminitic horses

Posted on: March 12, 2012

Use a small coffee grinder to grind flax seed for your horse.

In a previous post, we looked at two veterinarians who recommend adding fat to the diet of laminitic horses to keep their blood sugar from spiking.

The veterinarians suggest using ground flax seed as the source of that fat, and one says to use a small coffee grinder to grind the flax seed.

I bought a bag of whole flax seed from my local grocery store. The store only offered one brand. I can’t tell you if it’s the right kind. I watched a YouTube video on grinding flax seed, and the host said she prefers golden flax seed to the darker variety. I believe mine is the darker variety.

One of the vets recommending this, Dr. Frank Reilly in Pennsylvania, suggests feeding a horse 4 tablespoons of flax seed. I’m assuming that’s per day, since he recommends giving a horse its feed ration in the morning. I still divide my horses’ feed into three meals, and each horse gets 1 pound total of Nature’s Essentials Enrich 32 (Reilly’s recommendation due to its low starch content — I switched my horses to it in October 2011 when I started my horses on Reilly’s Heiro supplement). I did some weighing to work this out, and each horse gets half a cup of feed per meal to equal that pound.

Half a cup isn’t a lot. It’s hard to hide anything in half a cup.

Since the horses get their Heiro supplement with breakfast, I decided to put the flax seed in lunch and dinner at 2 tablespoons per meal, along with their thyroid powder.

Two tablespoons of flax seed is more than it sounds. The horses noticed it was there. They didn’t hate it. They ate their whole meal. But Robin Hood made a big face after he was finished, complete with curled lip. I tasted the flax seed (before he did), and I thought it tasted like grass or hay. It doesn’t really have a taste to me.

Small coffee grinders can hold maybe 4 tablespoons of flax seed.

To grind the flax seed, I put 4 tablespoons in the grinder to prepare the ration for one meal. A small grinder won’t hold much more than that. Grinding the seed is similar to using a food processor. Put the lid on and press a plastic button on the lid in a pulsing motion a few times to turn the seeds into powder. It takes less than 10 seconds total.

Reilly says that feeding whole seed to a horse is a waste, as it goes right through the horse.

It appeared to me that the ground seed was about the same measurement as it was as whole seed; grinding it might actually add a little volume. I put my first batch into a bag for the evening meal and stored that in the refrigerator (not sure if that’s necessary, but the YouTube host said she preserved her freshly ground seed in the refrigerator for later use in the day). And then I split the second batch of 4 tablespoons between the two buckets for Robin and Kurt’s lunch. Note that the remaining flax seed in the package should be stored in an airtight bag to maintain its health properties.

Cleaning the grinder requires wiping it out with a wet towel. The grinder can’t be rinsed or washed like a pot. The YouTube video host said to get a grinder specifically for seeds. Don’t try to use your coffee grinder for this, as it will be hard to switch back and forth between the two products without contamination.

All in all, this is pretty easy.

Ground flax seed can help prevent blood sugar spike in laminitic horses

Posted on: February 28, 2012

For owners of laminitic horses with the insulin form of the disease, keeping the horse’s blood sugar from spiking is the key to trying to turn the disease around and preventing future bouts. Excess blood sugar leads to excess insulin in the blood, which appears to bind to the wrong receptors in the horse’s feet and cause abnormal hoof growth, resulting in laminitis, according to research by Dr. Chris Pollitt and his team in Australia.

I have found two quality sources that are recommending putting ground flax seed in the horse’s meals as a source of fat.

One is Dr. Madalyn Ward, DVM, of Bear Creek Veterinary Clinic in Austin, Texas. She says that feeding fat to an overweight horse may seem counterintuitive, but it curbs the horse’s appetite and slows the release of glucose. She recommends ground flax seed, rice bran or cold-processed vegetable oil on her website.

Dr. Frank Reilly at Equine Medical & Surgical Associates in Pennsylvania also proposes using ground flax seed, and he used to provide instructions on how to do so on his website.

Owners should feed 1/4 cup, or 4 tablespoons, of ground flax seeds, not flax seed oil or whole seeds. Whole seeds go right through the horse. The seeds must be ground.

Reilly says they can be ground in a small electric coffee grinder, available for $15 at big discount stores. I couldn’t find a coffee grinder at my local Walmart, but I did see a basic one for about $13 on Amazon, and several reviewers said it was the perfect size if all you want to do is grind up flax seeds.

Reilly also says to buy whole flax seed, not preground flax seed, since shelf-life is an issue. Whole flax seed keeps in an airtight container for a year, whereas ground flax seed keeps for only 90 days.

He suggests avoiding flax seed products made for horses due to the shelf life issue, as well. If the flax seed is ground, and you don’t know when, the product may expire before you even buy it.

He says flax seed offers fiber, antioxidants, protein and the essential fatty acids of Omega 3 and Omega 6, which can help decrease inflammatory responses and the need for medications in a horse.

Plus, one tablespoon of ground flax seed is only 36 calories.

Dr. Mehmet Oz covered this topic Feb. 27, 2012, debunking the myth the fat is bad.

He also suggested adding cold-pressed oil in the form of rice bran oil. It’s loaded with monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, the good fat that a body needs to lose weight. He introduced the oil by saying, “Could this be the miracle fat that makes you get skinny?”

Oz said the rice bran oil contains gamma oryzanol, a plant phytochemical that “convinces our cells to burn up the sugar that’s going on in our bloodstream so that sugar doesn’t hang out in our bloodstream and get deposited on our hips or on our belly.” It also has Omega 6 fatty acids.

He suggested that, one day, it may become the standard cooking oil in people’s kitchens. Look for it at health food stores for about $8, he said.

Can laminitic horses eat carrots or not?

Posted on: February 18, 2012

It appears there’s some controversy over the glycemic index of the carrot in the human world.

In one corner are those claiming that carrots have an unusually high glycemic index, and they should be avoided by those with insulin resistance.

In the other corner are the carrot backers, including the World Carrot Museum, trying to establish that carrots really are healthy and should not be shunned.

This might generate a snicker in some parts of the world, but to owners of laminitic horses, this is important stuff.

In my attempt to get to the bottom of this, I learned another concept related to glycemic index called glycemic load.

The glycemic index of a food indicates how quickly the carbohydrates in the food will raise your blood sugar. The higher the number, the faster your blood sugar rises. And then there’s the inevitable crash.

The glycemic index for each food is determined by testing people’s response before and after they eat the food.

The result is compared to a reference food, such as white bread or white table sugar, which sets the bar at 100. Food with a lower glycemic index than 100 causes blood sugar to rise more slowly than white bread or table sugar.

The glycemic index is determined for 50 grams of carbohydrates in the food. That’s the point that can’t be overlooked. One serving of a food may not have 50 carbohydrates in it.

The glycemic load factors in the amount of carbohydrates in the food for a more accurate number of how a food will affect your blood sugar.

The website Caring4Cancer by P4 Healthcare compares a carrot to white pasta for glycemic index and load.

It says that 50 grams of carrot carbohydrate has a glycemic index of 131, and 50 grams of pasta carbohydrate has a glycemic index of 71. Carrots seem pretty unhealthy by that number.

But, one carrot has only 4 grams of carbohydrates, while a cup of pasta has 40 grams.

Thus, the carrot’s glycemic load is 5.2, while that for the pasta is 28.

A glycemic load of 10 or less is considered low, and 11 to 19 is medium. Twenty or over is high and not good.

Several other knowledgeable websites back up this message. Carrots are indeed OK for those battling insulin resistance.

Phew.

Are geldings less likely to develop laminitis, insulin resistance?

Posted on: January 16, 2012

In my research on the history of laminitis, it was hard to overlook the recommendation in the fifth century by writer Publius Vegetius Renatus that a horse with hoof problems related to overfeeding barley — presumably laminitis — should be castrated.

Scientific research appears inconclusive on gender’s role in laminitis.

A study published in The Cornell Veterinarian journal in 1975 looked at a series of equine laminitis cases examined at the University of Missouri’s vet hospital from 1965 through 1971 and reported there were significantly fewer geldings among the affected horses.

A comprehensive review of studies published in November 2011 in The Veterinary Journal says study results were inconsistent in a number of categories. The review looked at published material from 1910 to 2010 and said there was good evidence of a link between chronic laminitis and increasing age. But, it said there were inconsistent results for many other risk factors including gender, breed and body weight.

Laminitis Help’s own unscientific survey online found the opposite to be true. Survey respondents reported the gender of their laminitis horses as follows:

Stallion: 6
Mare: 81
Gelding: 89.

I included that question in the survey because my veterinarian on my early cases, a laminitis specialist, said it seemed as if fewer geldings developed the disease. When I relayed that to my farrier, he said all his laminitic cases were female.

My horses participated in three studies total, the last two in 2007 and 2008, during which their blood was tested regularly, and the two geldings were closest to normal on insulin levels. Kurt was always in the normal range with the exception of one reading. The boys lived and ate in the same conditions as the girls. Whatever on this farm caused the consistent development of laminitis did eventually catch up with them. They both had elevated insulin in June 2011. But, it took much longer to get there.

I had been going through studies online for about a week looking for clues on geldings and laminitis, but a topic on “The Dr. Oz Show” on Jan. 13, 2011, moved me to draw a likely conclusion:

Insulin-resistant cases of laminitis may affect geldings less.

And since the insulin-resistant form of laminitis is the predominant form today, thanks to our horses getting fatter and fatter, perhaps geldings are developing it less.

Gender probably doesn’t play much of a role in grain overload or grass cases that change the microflora of the hindgut, leading to enzymatic changes in the feet. Nor does it probably play a big role in cases caused by standing on one foot too long to take the weight off the opposite foot.

But, once you get into insulin resistance, estrogen is a major player.

In the human world, women appear more likely to develop insulin resistance, according to medical experts. Some physicians suggest that all women are at risk, including Dr. Yehuda Handelsman, medical director of the Metabolic Institute of America.

“The Dr. Oz Show” talked about the link between fat, estrogen and insulin resistance. Estrogen causes the body to make more insulin, and more insulin creates belly fat. Increased fat cells make estrogen. Thus, women have a never-ending insulin-resistance cycle.

The Women to Women website, run by women physicians, says insulin resistance — also called syndrome X — is so pervasive today that the clinic evaluates almost every patient to determine the individual’s level of risk. The practice says most women are surprised to learn they either already have insulin resistance or early symptoms.

Note that men also have estrogen, which contributes to healthy functioning of the body and hormonal balance. They just have less of it, but that estrogen rises in time because testosterone is converted to estrogen as they age.

Life Extension, a nonprofit focused on anti-aging and optimal health, looked at endocrine factors in insulin resistance for both genders:

— As men age, they convert testosterone into estradiol, a form of estrogen. Their levels of estrogen and insulin increase, resulting in belly fat. Studies suggest that fat cells, particularly abdominal fat cells, convert testosterone to estradiol, and the more belly fat a man develops, the more testosterone is turned into estradiol. Thus, they have their own problematic cycle.

Perhaps geldings are less affected by rising insulin levels because they have less testosterone to convert to estrogen. If only I could find the study on that.

— In women, estrogen inhibits lipid (fat) oxidation for women when they reach puberty and, again, if they become pregnant, to store fat for functions related to child-bearing. This increases fat storage with no dietary changes. As “The Dr. Oz Show” pointed out, increased fat elevates estrogen, leading to elevated insulin and more fat.

— When women reach menopause, their progesterone and estrogen levels drop, with progesterone dropping at a faster rate, leading to an imbalance and “estrogen dominance,” again contributing to fat accumulation.

— In men and women, everyone over 35 sees lower levels of dehydroepiandrosterone, or DHEA , a steroid hormone whose drop may lead to weight gain.

— Beyond any medical conditions, aging causes cells to be more resistant to insulin. As cells refuse to accept insulin, insulin rises, resulting in more fat.

Lowering insulin resistance

Life Extension, which admittedly does sell products as part of its mission, says fiber can slow carbohydrate absorption. Particularly, taking in fiber before meals can reduce rapid absorption of simple carbohydrates and control blood sugar. It recommends a Canadian proprietary blend called PGX, or PolyGlycopleX, made of the purified soluble dietary fibers of glucomannan, xanthan and alginate plus mulberry concentrate.

I mention this brand because it’s the brand a medical expert recommended on this same “Dr. Oz Show,” and Oz admitted his wife uses it.

The expert was noted physician and author Mark Hyman, whose book and PBS special “The Blood Sugar Solution” (release date of March 2012) addresses insulin resistance and obesity.

Hyman said food more than drugs is the medicine of choice to treat diseases such as diabetes.

He says inflammation is the real enemy, because it comes first in the downward spiral, but inflammation can be turned around with diet.

Inflammation occurs when the body’s white blood cells try to fight off foreign substances. Sometimes, the body reacts when there is no real enemy. Chemicals in the white blood cells are released in the blood and tissue, leading to increased blood flow, possible redness and elevated temperature. The chemicals can cause damage to tissue.

Inflammation is usually temporary but, with an autoimmune cases, the body attacks its own cells and tissues and gets caught in a loop of chronic inflammation. Inflammation leads to insulin resistance.

Chris Kresser, practitioner of integrative medicine, says the modern lifestyle is to blame for inflammation and lists five specific causes. Horse owners familiar with laminitis triggers will see some familiar names:

• Dietary toxins (primarily refined wheat, fructose and industrial seed oils);
• Environmental toxins (chemicals like Bisphenol A, pesticides, phthalates, flame retardants, and heavy metals);
• Micronutrient deficiencies (especially magnesium and vitamin D);
• Chronic stress (emotional, psychological, physiological);
• Altered gut microbiota (caused by antibiotic use, poor diet, formula-feeding during infancy);
• Sedentary lifestyle

Hyman, the medical expert on “The Dr. Oz Show,” listed causes of inflammation as sugar and white flour and reactions to food such as gluten (wheat) and dairy; he says corn and processed soy also can be triggers.

Hyman says the supplement PGX is a super fiber from konjac root and seaweed that absorbs hundreds of times its weight in water and prevents spikes in insulin.

If PGX is such a miracle cure for insulin-related problems, I wonder if there’s a PGX for horses or if anyone has given PGX itself to horses?

We are killing our laminitic horses with calories

Posted on: November 9, 2011

Editor’s note on June 15, 2015:

I wrote this post before reading Juliet Getty’s post on treating the insulin resistant horse. I no longer think counting calories is a good way to treat a laminitic horse. However, the included material related to calories is correct.

—–

We are killing our laminitic horses with calories.

That’s my conclusion. I had been thinking I had been starving my chronically laminitic horses for years only to discover I wasn’t even close.

I spent some time on the phone in November 2011 with an expert in equine nutrition, Dr. Scott King, a veterinarian who is now the equine products manager at Bayer Healthcare in the Animal Health Division. He used to be in charge of new product development at the Purina division that overseas equine feed and before that he was a practicing large and small animal veterinarian, who happened to be my vet.

He was doing me a favor in answering a question on a topic unrelated to calories, but that was all that was on my mind that week, and the conversation eventually turned to the appropriate amount of calories, officially kilocalories, that a horse should eat.

He said he believes that a maintenance horse needs fewer calories than the NRC recommendation of 15,000 calories that I’ve been quoting. He says the maintenance calorie requirement is 13,000, and he studied low-calorie diets for horses extensively, so he should know.

Prior to this conversation, I had taken my hay into my local feed store to make sure I had the weight correct. Using a USDA-calibrated scale, my flake was about 2 14/16 pounds, and I rounded up to 3 pounds for ease of doing the math, since flakes vary in size anyway.

Dr. King said brome hay tends to average 800 calories per pound. My brome was a bit more at 880 calories. Alfalfa is 900 calories.

If I multiplied 880 calories by 3 pounds, I got 2,640 calories for one flake.

I told Dr. King I thought that was impossible, adding: “That means that, if it’s raining and I decide to throw my horses an extra flake of hay to keep them busy while they stand in their shed, I’ve just given them several thousand extra calories.”

He said that’s right. Referring to horse obesity, he said: “I believe it’s all about the calories.”

As noted previously, each of my two horses had been getting six flakes of hay per day, or 15,840 calories a day.

They also had been getting a total of 1 pound of Purina’s Nature’s Essentials Enrich 32 (I weighed that, too), which has 1,100 calories per pound.

And the horses got a carrot a day, which was roughly 50 calories.

For a grand total of 16,990 calories.

If a pound of fat is equivalent to 3,500 calories, and the horses were getting 3,990 extra calories a day by Dr. King’s standards, it didn’t take much to figure out why the 14-2 hand pony looked wide enough to be two ponies.

Dr. King recommended that I ride one at a walk and pony the other, since my efforts to make them do real exercise had failed due to mobility issues.

Note that all my horses foundered while in work, and a horse in work gets to eat considerably more calories..

Once a horse is foundered and cannot work, you definitely are dealing with a whole new meal plan, and likely most of us are overfeeding our laminitic horses immensely once they turn into lawn ornaments, thus cementing their fate as chronically laminitic horses for the rest of their lives.

Knowing what I’ve learned about how many calories are packed into a flake of seemingly harmless hay — what I once equated to a bowl of salad for humans — I now have to believe overeating played a major role in these recurring founder cases, even if I find out that excess iron or some other environmental factor gave the horses a big push.

Calories in hay and feed for laminitic and foundered horse

Posted on: November 7, 2011

A typical hay sample report shows the hay’s megacalories per pound in addition to the sugar and starch content. A megacalorie is 1,000 kilocalories, and a kilocalorie is what we know as a calorie. The rest of this article will use the familiar term of calorie.

My recent hay sample of brome hay says it has .88 megacalories, or 880 calories, per pound. If my horses are eating 20 pounds per day, they are getting 17,600 calories a day from their hay, which is wee bit over the 15,000 calories a day that the National Research Council is suggesting for a sedentary 1,000-pound horse, which might explain the big rolls of fat on my horses’ sides. For years with these hay results, I’ve been looking at the sugar and starch content to determine if I had the right hay. But, now I’m taking into consideration the calorie content, and the horses are getting too many calories. Reviewing my hay tests going back to 2004, the calories per pound all fall within a similar range. This particular hay is not extreme.

As for feed, the Animal Health Foundation, a laminitis research foundation, compiled the calorie amounts of many common equine feeds and distributed the list in 2007. I’m attaching a copy of that here since I can’t find it online. Most feeds have 1,000 to 1,500 calories per pound. My horses are getting a pound each of forage supplement.

The hay is particularly frustrating because my horses go through two flakes of hay at each of their three meals in no time and look at me as if I’m starving them. And, my strategy for exercising them has been to spread the hay out in several areas so they have to walk to get it. I can’t leave much of a pile in each place if I’m trying to stick to the two flakes per horse rule. And if I leave too small of a pile on a windy day, it just blows away. To find out that I’m 2,600 calories over their limit while struggling to stick to two flakes per horse per meal makes it all feel a little hopeless.