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> Hi, I've been perusing this topic for a while, haven't caught every post,
but I was interested in whether anyone had thought about the insulin angle
with regard to carbo-loading in horses.
To bring this around to horses, to me horses have always seemed like
the ultimate hypoglycemics (I realize that this may just be a perception but
bear with me), they do best with constant high fiber eating, they can't
handle the digestion of carbohydrates well (they're really very poorly
designed for them unlike humans), they can't handle long periods of
abstinance from food, and they can become toxic if they overindulge in
carbos.
First, the incidence of hypoglycemia in horses is the same or lower than in
humans--but I've encountered more than one in our testings of various glycogen
loaders. These animals start with a low glucose and a dose of sugar doesn't
move blood glucose very much. Thus, you're always exercising on a low glucose,
no matter what you do. These animals are not very good performers--until
someone like Dr. Eleanor Kellon gets ahold of them--she's turned at least one
hypoglycemic into a winning racehorse with dietary manipulations.
>> The things that long distance riders, and horse haulers have known for
many years is that horses on long distance rides don't do well with high
carbohydrate diets, >>
This is news to me. Have you asked consistent top-ten finishers how they feed
before and during a ride? Often, long-held perceptions are dead wrong.
> Endurance riders experiences
would seem to indicate that their horses do best when they eat hay and
grass but not if they feed grain.>
That's the perception--let's see if it's the truth.
> Recently there has been some additional data about feeding fats.
In looking at some things that have appeared in magazines on humans as well
as horses recently I find that some studies are showing that human marathon
runners do better on a higher fat diet, as high as 50% fat seems to provide
greater stamina for human runners, carbo-loading seems to be fading as
the thing to do for humans. >
I guess you've missed the 30 or more abstracts and references I've posted
here in the past year--all saying precisely the opposite.
>I would speculate that some human runners may
find that because of mild hypoglycemia carbo loading would not do those
runners much good, they would find that about a half-hour to an hour after
loading their energy might fail them. This does not mean that the majority
would have this condition but other factors may be involved. >
Speculation has to be based on at least some known facts--there is no
hypoglycemia with carboloading, except in individuals that have the disease.
>None of the
articles said to load on fat, merely that a low fat diet seems to be
associated with poor stamina in human runners, a higher fat diet is
associated
with better stamina.>>
Do you have an abstract you can post--dating the research and showing the
actual numbers?
>In horses there was a recent article on feeding fat
with regard to horse activity, energy, and behavior in Equus. The article
didn't elaborate but said that a study conducted at one vet school using
sweet feed for calories vs. fat for calories and using the same horses
showed that when horses were fed sweet feed they were more nervous and stall
walked more than horses fed fat. That nervous energy may be good in a horse
racing short distances on a track but it has been shown to be detrimental in
an endurance horse. I believe the article said the horses also seemed to
concentrate better during training when on fat vs. carbos. Endurance riders
have also reported better stamina in horses fed additional fat in their
diets. >>
The article should have been entitled "Lethargy after fat feeding". Why don't
you try the diet suggested on your endurance horse and report back? I'm sure
there will be several in the group that will go right along with you--you can
assemble a sample that will have some meaning. This is the "fat fad" at
work--by the time it gets to the pop magazines, you know there's a lot more
information on the subject. In this case, the realities of fat feeding are
slowly coming home to roost--in humans and in horses.
>Finally I have read that one of the problems with carbo loading,
especially with sugars is not just that serum blood sugar can spike and
then fall rapidly due to insulin overload, but also that shortly after
the rush from the sugar kicks in the neuro-transmitter serotonin is released
into the blood, and the serotonin causes people to become sleepy, not
exactly useful for an athletic activity.>
Obviously, you've never carboloaded anything. Yes, timing on the day of the
performance is critical in high speed athletes--not so critical with endurance
athletes. But getting the timing right is pretty easy, it's about the same for
most horses, and it depends of what types of carbs you're feeding--long chain
or short chain. We feed maltodextrin in the 1200 molecular weight.
" So could it be that we are seeing the effects of hypoglycemia
in horses? "
First of all, who's seeing anything? You start with an erroneus assumption and
then extrapolate therefrom. Where's the data?
>Has anyone done any studies on insulin secretion by horses
with regard to carbohydrates? Could this be one of the reasons that
endurance horses tend to do better when fed additional fat for energy than
with additional carbohydrates?>
Please cite your sources (scientific studies) for that last sentence)
Meanwhile, anyone who really cares about facts can get a glucometer, cheaply,
and monitor the precise relationship between carbohydrate feedings and blood
glucose in the individual horse--it will surprise you, Tracey.
> Is it possible that fat has an effect on
the slow continual release of blood glucose so that an insulin rebound effect
isn't seen in equine long distance athletes as well as in human long distance
athletes who consume it?>
Do you personally know a single winning marathoner that does not consume
simple sugars during the race? Can you cite studies of these winners showing a
benefit of fat over carbohydrate?
> Finally while we know that a muscle is a muscle
and human muscles and equine muscles are essentially the same with regard to
how they function can we then ignore the fact that human and equine
digestive systems are very different -- a horse simply cannot eat the amount
or quantity of fat, protein, and carbos a human can eat and a human simply
cannot eat the amount of roughage a horse can take it -- and not take that
factor into consideration?>
Several here have taken it into overwhelming consideration. Now that you've
taken it into consideration, your conclusions are all of the above?
Everybody's read the basic textbooks and the pop articles. Human coaches who
want to stay ahead of the competition read about what their opponents did
yesterday--not what some academic said thirty years ago and is still defending
today.
> Food for thought.>
Stale bread.
ti
Tracy and everybody
Tracy Scheinkman
Misty Mountain Arabian Sport Horses
Tucson, AZ
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