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RE: [RC] Ol' Time E'olytes - heidiOK, just remeniscing. I could swear that when I read my first article on electrolytes, it was written by Kerry Ridgeway and he came up with the idea of dosing them after watching *yet another* horse die at Tevis. So, in all fairness would you say the death rate is the same? I realize we've learned to be safer, vets have learned to use the CRI, etc. etc. but I do believe that was what the article said. In all fairness to Kerry, I think that addressing e-lytes was a logical move at that time in the sport, but like all things, our understanding (hopefully) grows over time. We didn't have a clue how horses' hindguts worked when I was in vet school--everyone said they were on the wrong end of the digestive tract to act like rumens. But now we know that in terms of VFA production, they act very much like rumens, explaining things about equine energy that we never understood before. And the jury is still out on the e-lyte question--the capabilities of the reserve in the hindgut, how that mobilizes, etc. Certainly many horses come right back to balance after an initial drop due to the hormonal aspects that Truman listed without having any additional e-lytes added--all while continuing to go down the trail and lose e-lytes to sweat. How do they do that? We don't fully understand it. But many do. Why do some do that so efficiently where others do not? We don't know. Gayle Ecker and others have done some great work on how much they lose in sweat. And the early reaction to that was much like the human don't-eat-fat craze--the endurance world went whole hog into adding e-lytes, not understanding that the other extreme could be just as bad, if not worse. Now we are finally beginning to understand that excess has its problems, too--including but certainly not limited to the possibility of increase in occurrence of gastric ulcers. Clearly Gayle's great work is just one part of the puzzle. And I think that we need to be aware of that when we decide to e-lyte, instead of treating e-lytes like some sort of innocuous substance. Gee, if a little is good, maybe more is better--nope, doesn't work that way. Heidi =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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