I've been learning a lot lately about soluble fiber's potential to improve the gut biome and it's potential to improve insulin response and such things as blood pressure, as a result of that improved microbial population. All the favorable responses seem to be related to soluble fiber being food for good bacteria in the colon of humans. While it slows down food transit through the gut, this aspect of its action is really secondary to its seeming ability to improve gut health through encouraging good bacteria, which themselves provide benefit to the host.
One thing I've learned that at least in humans, the fasting glucose test is really worthless. You could be in a state where your blood glucose looks great on a test, but in fact, your pancreas is pumping out insulin like crazy to keep the blood glucose down. Then, suddenly, BLAM, your pancreas crashes and now you have full blown diabetes. The best way to know if you're pre-diabetic is to do an hours-long insulin level test. Or, your doctor can look at you and tell. Like we can tell when our horses are IR just by looking at them.
It got me thinking about whether similar responses could be had in horses being fed soluble fiber (specifically psyllium husk, which is normally only fed to clear sand).
This is a paragraph on hay analysis by Dr. Juliet Getty on hay fiber. She doesn't address soluble fiber - there may not be a test for it. But here's a start, if you get your hay analyzed. We IR horse owners typically only concentrate on ESC in the hay, and likely ignore the following information, resulting in the purchase of lower quality hay to get the sugar down.
Acid detergent fiber (ADF) and Neutral Detergent fiber (NDF) -- both measure fibers (there are 5 types). Since fibers are digested by the microbes living in the hindgut (cecum and large colon), a healthy microbial population is important for your horse to derive calories from fiber. However, there is one type of fiber that is indigestible - lignin. Lignin is increased as the plant matures. The higher these two values, the more lignin the hay contains. This means that your horse is not able to thrive on this hay since much of it ends up in the manure. The ideal ADF is less than 31%; ideal NDF is less than 50%. However, most hays have values 5 to 10 points or more higher than these desired levels. To compensate, more hay needs to be consumed.
The hay I've been feeding for the last two years has 34%ADF and 55.8% NDF. But it's way low carb...
It seems that these good gut bacteria will fail to proliferate in the absence of soluble fiber and the consequence could be contributing to insulin resistance, at least in humans.
What if we feed a specific source of soluble fiber to our horses, to improve the gut biome? We feed probiotics and prebiotics to our horses all the time, but if the right kind of fiber is lacking in the gut, those newly introduced bugs are just going to starve to death. It seems. t's got me wondering. Here's an article I came across, which links to a second article. There's not much out there on the subject.
ker.com
One thing I've learned that at least in humans, the fasting glucose test is really worthless. You could be in a state where your blood glucose looks great on a test, but in fact, your pancreas is pumping out insulin like crazy to keep the blood glucose down. Then, suddenly, BLAM, your pancreas crashes and now you have full blown diabetes. The best way to know if you're pre-diabetic is to do an hours-long insulin level test. Or, your doctor can look at you and tell. Like we can tell when our horses are IR just by looking at them.
It got me thinking about whether similar responses could be had in horses being fed soluble fiber (specifically psyllium husk, which is normally only fed to clear sand).
This is a paragraph on hay analysis by Dr. Juliet Getty on hay fiber. She doesn't address soluble fiber - there may not be a test for it. But here's a start, if you get your hay analyzed. We IR horse owners typically only concentrate on ESC in the hay, and likely ignore the following information, resulting in the purchase of lower quality hay to get the sugar down.
Acid detergent fiber (ADF) and Neutral Detergent fiber (NDF) -- both measure fibers (there are 5 types). Since fibers are digested by the microbes living in the hindgut (cecum and large colon), a healthy microbial population is important for your horse to derive calories from fiber. However, there is one type of fiber that is indigestible - lignin. Lignin is increased as the plant matures. The higher these two values, the more lignin the hay contains. This means that your horse is not able to thrive on this hay since much of it ends up in the manure. The ideal ADF is less than 31%; ideal NDF is less than 50%. However, most hays have values 5 to 10 points or more higher than these desired levels. To compensate, more hay needs to be consumed.
The hay I've been feeding for the last two years has 34%ADF and 55.8% NDF. But it's way low carb...
It seems that these good gut bacteria will fail to proliferate in the absence of soluble fiber and the consequence could be contributing to insulin resistance, at least in humans.
What if we feed a specific source of soluble fiber to our horses, to improve the gut biome? We feed probiotics and prebiotics to our horses all the time, but if the right kind of fiber is lacking in the gut, those newly introduced bugs are just going to starve to death. It seems. t's got me wondering. Here's an article I came across, which links to a second article. There's not much out there on the subject.
The Use of Psyllium for Insulin Resistance - Kentucky Equine Research
In the horse world, psyllium is the product of choice to prevent sand colic, but little else in known about its usefulness. Because the focus of psyllium use in horses centers around its use in sand colic, little is known about its effect on insulin sensitivity.
ker.com
