Hindgut Microflora of Laminitic, Nonlaminitic Horses Compared

Hindgut Microflora of Laminitic, Nonlaminitic Horses Compared

First, I'd like to complement the author and the interviewed researchers on sticking to the facts of the findings rather than reaching unwarranted conclusions. Nice job.

You can read the full study itself here:

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1746-6148/8/231

By way of background, human studies have found that the bacterial populations of the gut are as individual as fingerprints so the finding of great diversity was to be expected.

The study was performed because of the association between toxins from proliferating lactobacilli and streptobacilli in acute laminitis caused by hind gut carb overload. When this occurs, the horse is also acutely ill with fever, septicemia, abdominal pain and diarrhea.

Chronic laminitis pain is overwhelmingly either endocrine in origin, or related to poor hoof care and mechanical factors as well as vascular and neurological damage in the feet.

The groups were small so it is very difficult to assign any significance to changes documented between them. For example, the two different strains found in the laminitic group could be due to both horses being in the same environment where those organisms were found. Better diversity isn't really surprising either because most people know to feed laminitic horses a high fiber diet, which requires a more diverse population to efficiently ferment.

Eleanor


Hi Dr. Kellon,

I'd like to jump in with a couple of additional comments.

Complexity is added to this study by the horse populations that they utilized. In the supplemental data, I found that there are interesting differences.

First, what really jumps out is that the average age of the control horses is 7.7 years. The average age of the laminitic population is over 15 years. Although they say that none of the horses were PPID, the researchers did not do an ACTH test on these horses to see if they were. In many horses, one of the first signs to early PPID is laminitis. 

The control horses were all quarterhorses. The laminitic horses contained a mix of breeds, including QH, Arabian, Warmblood, Thoroughbred, and a pony. This breed diversity could also contribute to the hindgut diversity.

It's also noted that on Farm A, there were 9 control horses and 1 laminitic horse. On Farm B, there was 1 control horse and 7 laminitic horses. Different feeds were fed on each farm. A different pelleted concentrate was on each farm also. Farm A also fed supplemental alfalfa to the control horses. 

So while this study was interesting, major factors that could affect hindgut bacterial populations were present.

It would be interesting to see what these results would be with age-matched, breed-matched controls, with all of the horses housed on the same farm. It would also be interesting to see if there was an age difference testing the bacterial populations of young horses vs the older horses.

Joan and Dazzle