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[RC] [Fwd: Carbohydrates During a ride] - Bruce Weary DC-------- Original Message --------
Hi Ed-- How's things in your neck of the woods? You brought up some interesting ideas about sugar metabolism, and I thought I'd comment. It works kinda like this: The horse (or person) eats a carb meal, and digests it primarily in the stomach. It passes through the small intestine where it is absorbed as glucose into the bloodstream. As the glucose circulates in the blood through the pancreas, insulin is released into the blood to make the body's cells permeable to the glucose so that it can get inside the cell where it is burned. I don't know of a mechanism that allows glucose into the cell without the use of insulin. If complex carbs are used, there shouldn't be a "spike," but rather a sloping increase in blood sugar over 20-30 minutes. When the glucose levels get too low, the pancreas also knows this, and releases another hormone, glucagon, which tells the liver to release some of it's glycogen stores to bring the levels back up. This is essentiall y the "check and balance" system of the pancreas designed to control glucose levels.This is probably the mechanism involved in the highs and lows horses (and people) experience during a ride. In your mother's case, she would eat carbs that increased her blood sugar levels, but if she didn't produce insulin, her blood sugar would just keep circulating, "trapped" in the bloodstream, and unable to "escape" into the cells. This is the problem with diabetics--they eat, but don't get the benefit of the energy of the food they eat, so they feel fatigued, and are still hungry even though there's plenty of glucose circulating in their blood. Since they're always hungry, obesity often goes hand in hand with diabetes. The resulting effect of the insulin shot has a lot to do with when they eat and their activity level. If it's done properly, they get energy from their food, and can maintain activity. If not, you're right, the insulin will cause storage and weight gain. I can't explain why your mother did okay with eating apples, other than maybe the fact that she might have produced some low levels of insulin, and the sugar in the apples is digested slowly, so the two together helped maintain a decent glucose level. In feeding the horse throughout the ride, not just at vet checks, we can avoid the typical dropping of the blood glucose levels, and keep the horse strong and functioning better all day. It reminds me of the guy on Ed Sullivan who used to spin those plates on those tall skinny sticks. He'd have seven or eight of them going at a time, and he'd just tweak each stick every now and then to keep them spinning. If he didn't pay attention, the plates would eventually slow down and wobble badly, and eventually crash to the floor. We just have to "keep the horse's plates spinning." And it's easy. Just feed him frequently throughout the ride, and make sure some of that feed is carbs. Dr Q
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