Gro 'n Win® is an excellent choice for your insulin-resistant horse, pony or miniature horse. Gro 'n Win® is a safe, low starch and sugar, low glycemic formula that will provide the essential nutrients not adequately supplied in forage-based diets.
Insulin is a hormone responsible for things such as regulating blood glucose. It is a hormone under a lot of focus at the moment in equine research especially in the areas of laminitis and obesity. With more vets using the term when speaking to owners about overweight, laminitic and Cushingoid horses, it is important to have an understanding of what it means for your horse or pony.
Glycemic response is a term used to explain the increase in blood glucose (sugar) after a starch or sugar-based meal is consumed. When cereal grains are digested in your horse's small intestine, the glucose is absorbed into the bloodstream, signaling the release of insulin. When everything works properly, the insulin removes the glucose from the bloodstream, shifting it into surrounding tissues, returning glucose concentrations to normal in the bloodstream.
Non-structural carbohydrates (NSC) is a term used to describe the amount of starch and sugar in a feed. Feeds that contain high levels of sugars or rapidly digestible starch will increase the blood glucose levels causing insulin to rise rapidly after a meal. In other words, these feeds cause a large gylcemic and insulinemic response. This is important to be aware of since long-term feeding of high gylcemic and insulinemic diets may predispose certain classes of horses to insulin resistance of Developmental Orthopedic Diseases (DOD).
In this condition, the insulin receptors located in the surrounding tissues become less sensitive to the effects of insulin. Therefore the horse becomes less able to deal with glucose entering the body from the digestive tract. Since blood glucose levels remain high, insulin continues to be released. This leads to elevated concentrations of insulin in the bloodstream.
It is thought that IR plays a role in laminitis and the risk of developing it is much greater in overweight and obese horses and ponies. While research continues to explore this area, it is very wise to keep an eye on our horse and pony's waistline, and wherever possible reduce the reliance on a cereal grain based feed to reduce the risk of your horse or pony developing insulin resistance in the first place.
Gro 'n Win® has been scientifically researched to provide a low-glycemic formula, critical in managing horses with insulin resistance. Our Gro 'n Win® formula is very safe, low-starch and sugar and keeps the calories low while remaining highly palatable. The excellent amino acid supply can also help muscle tone and condition as you create a program to manage your horse's weight. We also recommend feeding your horse lower-quality forage (decreasing the amount of starch and sugar your horse is receiving from the forage) fed at a minimum of 1% of body weight per day. If you would like your forage analyzed, our nutritionists here at Buckeye® Nutrition would be glad to help you with that service.
