Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Lest we start throwing out the baby with the bathwater....

Yes, electrolyte levels that are both too high and too low can both cause 
significant problems.

No, electrolytes are not invariably innocuous.  Neither is water, or hay, or 
grain, or an average rider, if any or all are administered or managed 
incorrectly.

Note that dosing the horses at both levels in this study involved only two 
doses, in what amounted to a significant bolus of electrolytes---as opposed to 
much smaller and more frequent doses before and during a strenuous ride.  
Because I have low blood pressure, I personally don't feel good or do well 
during any sort of exercise unless I eat A LOT of salt throughout the day---but 
if I tried cramming a huge spoonful of salt down my throat just twice during 
the day, I'd be feeling like hell, too.  Duh.

Also notice that the pool of horses in each treatment or control group is quite 
small, an unavoidable consequence of limited research funds.  But that also 
makes conclusions of performance results more difficult to assess, especially 
since in neither trial were the riders trying to be especially competitive, nor 
were the two exercise bouts particularly similar (ie, they were still during 
endurance rides, not repeatable and standardized exercise trials on a 
high-speed treadmill, for example).  When I've done field research in endurance 
horses, it can take HUNDREDS of participating horses to even begin to overcome 
the vast number of variables and before a statistically significant trend 
emerges.  That's just the math of it.

Yup, the body can safely and efficiently filter out significant amounts of 
excess electrolytes, and also efficiently increase plasma volumes from 
interstitial spaces, etc to compensate.  If the horse is drinking large amounts 
of water to dilute moderately elevated levels, that's a normal compensatory 
mechanism, and one that *should* be taken advantage of to offset the fluid 
losses during exercise.  Problems associated with excessive electrolyte dosing 
is almost invariably associated with too-much-at-once, as opposed to using a 
more moderate salt-shaker approach.  Again, the difference is small and 
frequent doses, versus enormous boluses.

It's really easy to gravitate from extreme to the other in choosing an elyting 
protocol and NO ONE ( including Heidi) advocates NO electrolytes during 
endurance---Heidi's approach (and correct me if I'm wrong) is providing elytes 
via vast amounts of forage, which is more than sufficient for a large number of 
horses under certain circumstances.  The French team may insist they don't 
elyte their horses, but assuming they fed their horses during the day, then 
sure they did---they just may not have been doing so via an oral syringe, thus 
were probably providing elytes via forage, possibly via concentrate rations, or 
added to water, or offered free-choice.  There are LOTS of ways to skin that 
cat.

Other vets advocate that there's no upper limit to syringed elytes, and I think 
this study illustrates that that ain't necessarily a good thing, 
either---something we pretty much already knew.  My opinion is that lots of 
forage is a fundamental management tool for a number of metabolic reasons, 
including electrolyte supplementation, PLUS I personally advocate a plethora of 
tiny, frequent 'salt-shaker' doses at every opportunity to mediate elyte losses 
during the day.  In the PNW during a 11-hour fifty, even that is likely 
unnecessary.  During a 5 hour 50 in the SE in hot, humid conditions, I think 
you'd potentially be in a lot of trouble if you didn't augment elytes one way 
or another.  But rarely is the best method going to be administering a gigantic 
dose only once or twice during the day.

FWIW, I'm going to be trying to summarize a lot of the newer electrolyte 
research at one or both of my seminars at convention (and there's a lot of new 
stuff out there).  Troy asked if I could submit an article or two for EN for 
those that won't be there, and I'll try to get that done asap, probably as soon 
as the current teaching quarter is over and I can catch my breath.

JMO.
Susan Garlinghouse, DVM


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
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!!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-