Re: RC: Re: one of your type discussions on ridecamp now

[Tivers@aol.com]

In a message dated 12/16/99 8:36:43 AM Pacific Standard Time, CMKSAGEHIL 
writes:

<< << Ok, let's examine this statement. Please explain how 4 ounces of 
sugar/chromium every two hours during a ride compromises gut functin and 
results in serious repercussions to the horse.  >>
 
 I didn't say that four ounces WOULD shut it down.  (In fact, you didn't give 
your doseage in prior posts--or if you did, I missed it.)  My complaint is in 
your inference that the same four ounces will fuel the entire horse--as in 
your statement that carbs will replace other sources of nutrition.  Please 
explain THAT.>

Just try it, Heidi. Then you can attempt to explain the beneficial results. 
Please point to the statements that said "fuel the entire horse" and "replace 
other sources of nutrition". A simple definition of supplemental is 
"additional". In this case, additional energy targeted specifically at 
athletic performance and muscle metabolism. Am I still unclear to you? 
 
 <<Nothing is foolhardy until proven incorrect. Thus far, we've seen nothing 
but benefit from supplementing fast acting carbs during a ride and all these 
trials have been timid, at best.>>
 
 Did I say you weren't seeing benefit from small supplements of carbs??  No, 
I did not.  You are confusing me with someoone else.  What I said was that 
you were leaving VFA's and normal gut function out of the equation with your 
inferences that carbs are the entire story. >

You're incorrect. Again, it's a targeted supplemtation, not a complete diet 
workover. what you're doing is trying to make it appear to be some wild 
scheme that will turn a horse into a pillar of salt. 

> But the key here is that the carbs at the level you are adding ARE indeed a 
supplement to the normal process that is (according to sources which more 
academic sorts have listed for you in this forum in previous discussions and 
which I'm sure you can find in the archives if you really care about 
references on this subject) up to half VFA's and half carbs in the normal 
aerobic athlete.>

Ma'am, I read more science in a day than you read in a year. Again, if you 
want a cite war, I'm ready. Not much fun for Ridecamp readers, though. I'm 
happy that you are finally understanding the word "supplement", though. Major 
step in the right direction.
 
 <<You're extrapolating dire results with absolutely no empirical evidence 
other than bad dreams. >>
 
> If you want to call the nightmares one has after treating horses whose 
roughage intake has been ignored "bad dreams" you have a point.  But the 
cases that trigger them and the feeding programs that triggered them were 
real.>

Do you have a nightmare carbo supp case that you can display here for our 
edification?

 > You forget, Tom--I'm not an academic, but an old field hack who asks lots 
of questions about horses that crash and horses that don't. >

Me, too.

> I'm not trying to say that what you are doing is bad--I'm just trying to 
give the audience the benefit of the knowledge that there has to be a sound 
roughage-based diet FIRST before you start adding your supplements and that 
they are not a substitute for a sound nutritional approach to the sport--but, 
rather, a supplement.  Is that so difficult for you?>

Not at all--agree 100%.
 
 <<> Both are utilized, and both must be considered.  You are correct that 
feeding fat slows digestion--not once in this discussion have I suggested 
feeding fat on race day.>
 
 Good. That was the old fad. Now it's hay, the new fad.>>
 
 >Hay is not, and has never been, a fad.  It has been the staple of the horse 
since the horse evolved on the grasslands of Asia, and since his forerunners 
evolved on the grasslands of North America.  His entire digestive process has 
evolved to utilize roughage.  That is the point you seem to want to ignore. >

Roughage has its place, in all mammals. However, it's not something to become 
fixated on just because comparative anatomy 101 enables an equine vet to 
distinguish himself from a bovine vet. 

> As for fat--although your point about the problems of feeding fat on race 
day is correct, the general feeding of fat has well-documented advantages--in 
both the aerobic AND the anaerobic athlete.  But then you didn't choose to 
read the references given you in past times in this forum,>

Again, you're way offbase with this personal attack on my reading 
capabilities. The difference between you and I is that I read the papers, 
while you read biased interpretations of the papers.  

 >so I guess there's no point in referring you once again to the archives 
where the academics with the references at their fingertips have listed them 
for you again and again and again.>

And where you'll find my own cites listed again and again and again.  An 
exercise in futility. 

> But perhaps others reading the discussion are more willing to learn and 
might be willing to look them up, since Steph has so kindly provided archives 
for this forum..>

Yes, it is to be hoped that some here have intellectual curiosity. 
 
 <<Ok, do you have numbers on the percentage of weight of roughage that 
eventually becomes viable energy,  say, 36 hours after ingestion? Lon Lewis 
says "not much". Maybe you have a more informed source I can study. >>
 
 Perhaps some of those references do.  That isn't a number that has stuck in 
my mind.>

See, that's the problem--citing references without reading them.

>  The take-home lesson, though, from the research is that nearly half of the 
energy utilized by the aerobic athlete is in the form of VFA's coming from 
the gut, from that very roughage.  Can't remember which ones gave actual 
percentages on the energy from VFA's--may have been Hintz and others.  As to 
Lon Lewis and roughage--perhaps YOU should go back and study him--he 
certainly doesn't advocate replacing hay with carbs. >

I've cited Lon Lewis and those cites are in the archives. consider reading 
them.

> I believe it was Sarah Ralston, DVM (and aren't you also a PhD in 
nutrition, Sarah?) who gave you a long list of references from Lewis backing 
up the concept that the diet MUST be hay-based and that a great deal of 
energy comes from it.  Lewis has kept up--his more current work is not the 
same as what he was putting out 20 years ago.  But then that's what happens 
when people continue to research and learn.>

Read the actual cites from Lewis. They're from his most recent book. Well, 
since I know you won't bother, here are a coupole:

"Insoluble fiber is the most poorly utilized potential source of Dietary 
energy. The higher the insoluble fiber content of feed, the lower the amount 
of usable dietary energy that feed will provide."

"What is analyzed in a feed as dietary fiber consists of not only 
polysaccharides composed of monosaccharides linked by beta bonds, but also 
lignin and, in overheated feeds, starch that has been rendered undigestible 
because of heat damage."
 
 <<Again, the only change I'm suggesting is the addition of a carbohydrate 
supplement--which will shift energy metabolism toward glucose/glycogen 
dramatically. You can feed all the hay, and water, you want for gut motility. 
But the VFAs will become nexrt to useless with the carb supp.>>
 
 Well, SO glad you're finally admitting that you won't change the basic diet. 
>

Actually, I'm working on that right now, but have no results to report yet. 

>As to making the VFA's useless--they will still be there, even if you shift 
the percentage somewhat with your carbs.  And they will still provide a 
steady state of material for the Krebs cycle, whether you want to acknowledge 
that or not.>

If blood gucose is in abundance, fats are inhibited from entering the muscle 
cell to participate in the krebs cycle. Very basic exercise science with 
enough cites behind it to match the current size of the Ridecamp archives.
 
 <<Nope. You go too far. I'll go along with the gut motility theory, even 
though I believe that dehydration is a more important factor in loss of gut 
motility than any hay intake during a ride--but I'll go along just to be 
pleasant. However, VFA production has nothing to do with "hills and valleys" 
of blood glucose in carbohydrate supplemented horses. >>
 
> You're right--it's the glucose that causes the hills-and-valleys, not the 
VFA's.  They are a much more steady-state source.  And oh, yes--timing is 
everything, you said.  Darn--this course just doesn't have a vet check at the 
place where I need to stop and supplement carbs--guess I'll have to stop and 
get off and give them, and watch my competition disappear over the hill..>

That's precisely how it works.

>  Yeah, yeah, jump all over me that that's an extreme.>

Not at all, just basic horsemanship and intelligence.

>  And you're right.  But the point is that endurance does not always lend 
itself well to "timing" and thus some emphasis on a nutritional plan where 
"timing" means making sure the horse has a good gut fill for 48-72 hours 
BEFORE the ride is still beneficial.>

Am studying that now. I'll let you know what happens when grain ijntake is 
emphasized prior to an event. If the horses implode, explode, spontaneously 
combust or simply sprout wings and fly away, you'll get the information--I 
promise.
 
 <<Snaark.  You know me, anything that enrages a Poobah with a pet, embedded, 
 theory to protect brings a blossom of joy to my heart. >>
 
 Yes, Tom, we know that all too well.  Which is why it gets kind of old when 
you present your ideas in exaggerated terms to push people's buttons instead 
of just saying hey, this is a supplemental approach that can help if you are 
careful to do it right.>

Actually, that's what happens when people like you exaggerate what I say to 
fit your own agenda. I mention carbohydrate supplementation and you come out 
with dire warnings of catastrophe when the horse is fed "nothing but carbs 
and no roughage". sombody's lying here--is it me?

>  You go far beyond Poobahs, and you undermine support that you would have 
from sensible, well-rounded folks if you would keep the perspective of the 
whole horse in your discussions.>

Your perspective is your own, and you're welcome to it. I believe that most 
of the participants in ridecamp can read a complete sentence and understand 
it. Yo0ur interpretatinos of my words is incorrect and has been from the 
getgo. So, my words offend you. I can do nothing about that and am not at all 
interested in eliciting your support. Nor am I interested in making friends 
by going along with what I know to be false information. 

 > I know you get a big charge out of these debates.  I personally think they 
are a boring waste of time, but I do feel that the readers in this forum 
deserve to see the whole picture.>

You seem perfectly happy to participate in the debates, and I sincerely doubt 
that your primary inspiration is a quest for the "whole picture". I play here 
because, after one of these set-to's a dozen ridecampers try tyhings and 
report back the results. That's what I want from this group--applied 
knowledge. Entirely selfish on my part because I, in turn, sell that 
knowledge to make a living. If one of those with the courage to innovate 
benefits hugely, then I am delighted for them--not because they did what I 
said, but because they mustered up the courage to try something different 
than the massively uninformed. 
 
 >Heidi
 
  >>

ti


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