Study: Age Affects Equine Glucose, Insulin Responses

Older horses tended to have higher insulin secretory responses to glucose compared to adult horses, researchers found.
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Study: Age Affects Equine Glucose, Insulin Responses
Researchers found that aged horses tended to have higher insulin secretory responses to glucose when compared to adult horses, regardless of diet. | Photo: iStock
Equine metabolic syndrome (EMS) has been widely studied, but little data is available regarding the effect of age or diet on horses’ glucose and insulin dynamics.

To close this information gap, an international team of researchers recently set out to evaluate different diets’ effects on glucose and insulin levels in healthy adult and aged horses. Additionally, they sought to determine the short-term glycemic and insulinemic responses to meal consumption for each diet.

The research team assigned eight adult (5 to 13 years) and eight aged (18 to 24 years) Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds to one of four seven-week feeding treatments before rotating them through all treatments:

  • Control: restricted starch and sugar fortified pellets;
  • Starch: smaller portion of Control + kibbled corn;
  • Sugar: smaller portion of Control + dextrose powder; and
  • Fiber: smaller portion of Control + unmolassed sugar beet pulp/soybean hull pellets.

“Nonobese horses were used to eliminate obesity as a factor that might change the results,” noted lead researcher Sarah Jacob, a PhD candidate at Michigan State University, in East Lansing

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Written by:

Casie Bazay is a freelance and young adult writer, as well as a certified equine acupressure practitioner. She also hosts a blog, The Naturally Healthy Horse. Once an avid barrel racer, she now enjoys giving back to the horses who have given her so much.

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