Laminitis in Horses: Managing Insulin Dysregulation, Diet, Medications & Hoof Care Part 2 | Ep. 85

Jill Jackson (0:09)

Welcome to Scoop & Scale, where we dish up the science and weigh the facts about mostly equine nutrition. I'm Jill Jackson, lifelong equestrian, podcast producer and pony owner.

I'm a dressage rider and at-home horse keeper, living the challenge of managing easy keepers on multiple acres of pasture.

Clair Thunes (0:28)

And I'm equine nutrition consultant, Dr. Clair Thunes of Clarity Equine Nutrition. I develop diet plans for horses, ranging from metabolic seniors to Olympic athletes. I also consult for equine nutrition companies. I'm a scientist, dressage rider, and pony club mom.

Jill Jackson (0:43)

Clair and I have been horse friends for almost 20 years. And like all good horse friends, we're always talking horses. We talk about the challenges of managing our horses, our riding struggles, feeding horses, and what's going on in the wider equine community. This podcast is a place for us to have conversations mostly about equine nutrition. It's for anyone who wants to make better choices when it comes to feeding their horses.

Clair Thunes (1:07)

And before we get started, a quick disclaimer. The information in this podcast is general and not meant to replace the individualized advice of your own qualified equine nutritionist or veterinarian. And while I have a PhD in nutrition, I'm not a veterinarian and can't give medical advice.

Jill Jackson (1:23)

With that, thank you for joining us and we hope you enjoy the following episode.

This episode is brought to you by GG Equine, makers of the GreenGuard Grazing Muzzle, thoughtful slow feed systems trusted by horse owners, veterinarians, and professionals. Go graze.

Clair Thunes (1:49)

In this episode, we're again joined by Dr. François-René Bertin to continue our discussion of laminitis. Dr. Bertin is the Professor of Large Animal Internal Medicine at Mississippi State University's College of Veterinary Medicine, and he's a board certified specialist through the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine. He's also the inaugural director of the new Nancy Fair Link Laminitis Research Centre at Mississippi State, a research facility being built specifically to advance laminitis prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. His own research focuses on the pathophysiology of hyperinsulinemia-associated laminitis and equine endocrine disease more broadly.

If you didn't catch our last episode, we discussed the causes of laminitis, the role of hyperinsulinemia, how to identify risk factors, and how to test at-risk courses. I would strongly recommend going back and taking a listen to that episode before continuing here if you missed it. So there's a big debate among nutrition experts, and I would say these days, knowledgeable owners about exactly which carbohydrate fractions in the diet we really need to be worrying about. Because for a long time, we've been worried about non-structural carbohydrates. Some feel that we only need to be concerned about what we call simple carbohydrates, the ESC fraction, because these are the carbohydrates that actually go into the blood, say, glucose, and therefore cause the increase in insulin. Meanwhile, I think there's also a community that is believing that it really should be. I think in the Equine Endocrinology Working Group recommendations, it's still stated as non-structural carbohydrate, which is not just the simple carbohydrate. There's some fructose in there as well. That's your WSC. We calculated our non-structural carbohydrate as WSC plus starch.

So this creates a bit of a debate, and I think it causes a lot of confusion for horse owners because they're like, do I need hay that's less than 10 percent ESC? Do I need hay that's less than 10 percent NSC? Like, why are we worried about NSC if it's the ESC that causes glucose to go up? And can you speak a little bit about that? Because as I say, the Equine Endocrinology Working Group, I think still does use NSC. I use NSC as a nutritionist because obviously I defer to the Endocrinology Working Group. But I certainly have nutrition peers that are arguing that we only need to worry about ESC.

François-René Bertin (4:10)

Yeah. So I mean, as the lead of the Equine Endocrinology Group, I will agree with what the group says. So yes, we consider that the start really do play a role. So we really consider that it's the water-soluble carbohydrate plus the start that we need to worry about. And we calculate our NSCs like that. So WSCs plus start with NSCs. So in the past, and when I was a vet student, the way I learned to calculate my carbohydrates was by removing everything else. So you had the non-fibre sugars, which was a little different. So the numbers could be a bit different with that. But I think I will go back to what I was saying before, that what's really important is how the horse is going to respond to it.