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Susan, on a somewhat less fatal and more chronic level, this is exactly what I've always seen in skinny horses getting grain--they go "Whee, energy!" and burn it off, rather than jump-starting any meaningful anabolic activity.  It seems counterintuitive to most folks, but when I've been confronted with lactating broodmares in particular that just go down to skin and bones, most owners want to grain, grain, grain--and they just get skinnier and skinnier.  Meanwhile the foal is butterball fat and has epiphysitis.  Can't begin to count the number of mares that I've seen improve in weight (and their foals have likewise "improved" in the other direction) when they have had their grain rations taken away and have instead been put on free-choice high-quality hay (in the case of broodmares, I DO up the alfalfa in the mix).  One HAS to get them utilizing other energy pathways, and when there are high levels of simple carbs present, the body seems to say, "Hey, I've got glucose--why bother?"

 

Heidi

*   I like the analogy of an office building with all the lights turned
*on. If there is a sudden power shortage, only crucial hallway lights and
*the lights in the CEO's office might be left on. The same can be true in
*the tired, glycogen depleted horse. He begins to shut down less vital
*systems to preserve enough glucose to at least keep the nervous system
*running. You're right that he can't eat enough non-structural carbs
*during a ride to entirely run on the mere calories that they provide,
*but if he eats carbs, he will elevate his blood glucose levels, and his
*system will know that it's okay to keep all the lights on in the
*building, rather than sense a shortage and begin economizing on systems
*functioning. Arguably, and I'd be interested in your perspective here,
*when the horse is becoming exhausted, he still has ample reserves of
*structural carbs, VFA's, and fiber on board, as well as his tissue fat
*reserves. Yet he is spiraling down.

I don't agree with your interpretation.  Speaking only from personal
experience, I rarely, if ever, have looked at a crashing horse and thought,
omigawd, this horse needs glucose and he'll be fine.  A crashing horse is
having problems in substrate distribution, ie the dehydration is causing
blood to thicken and get sludgey, the heart has to pump harder to move
things around, blood is shunted away from less vital organs and then *those*
organ systems (ie, GI tract) start to shut down.  A shot of glucose will NOT
put those horses back on the trail.  The issue is 99.9% a hydration
deficiency and while non-structural carbos will sometimes keep a horse
feeling good enough to eat and drink well, it can also just as easily make
him so goofy as to forget about eating and drinking entirely.  I've seen it
go both ways---frankly, more towards the latter than the former, although I
wouldn't vouch either way that the horses were being supplemented according
to TI recommendations.

Susan Garlinghouse, DVM, MS


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