Laminitis Nutritional Causes

Excessive intake of carbohydrate.
Laminitis nutritional causes. The causes vary and may include the following. These can be attributed to physical stress trauma on the body underlying past medical problems or metabolic factors initiating hormone changes such as an overproduction of cortisol. Where severe lameness in one hoof causes excessive weight on opposing limbs. This can be a common cause of laminitis.
Laminitis in horses is caused by the number of different factors acting alone or in combination. Overload inflammatory and metabolic. Nutrition can play a role in initiating laminitis either through precipitating an abrupt change in bacterial flora and releasing an endotoxic shower or directly through a carbohydrate overload. Starch is a storage carbohydrate found in plants.
The most common cause of nutrition related laminitis is an overload of rapidly fermentable carbohydrate either from starch found in cereals or sugars and fructan found in grass or forage. Thus laminitis has a great economic impact on dairy operations and all over the world dairy producers are moving towards housing cows in intensive confined conditions. Although laminitis occurs in the feet the underlying cause is often a disturbance elsewhere in the horse s body. The most famous example of this was the american racehorse barbaro who had a.
Over the years a huge amount of research has built up to demonstrate the consequences of such an overload on firstly the microbial balance in the hindgut and ultimately the weakening of the support given. The classical one and one area that has been investigated in greater detail is an excessive intake of carbohydrates in the diet. Other causes include mechanical stress endocrine disease steroids and genetic predisposition as seen in some ponies. With the laminae suffering trauma in this way it can bring on a bout of laminitis.
Digestive upsets due to grain overload such as excess grain fruit or snacks or abrupt changes in diet. Another common cause is nutritionally induced laminitis through carbohydrate overload. When we think about the nutritional causes of laminitis our first thought is to an overload of carbohydrate mainly starch into the hindgut. There are 3 main causes of laminitis.
Non nutritional causes of laminitis. If a horse has been worked fast and for a prolonged period of time on a hard surface such as trotting on roads this can affect the laminae especially if the horse has poor quality hooves. As we understand the causes of laminitis and identify the risk factors better it is possible to prevent and reduce the effects of the laminitis syndrome.