On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 8:50 AM, Eleanor Kellon, VMD <drkellon@...> wrote:

Those of you who have been involved with this disease for a long time
probably remember a few years back when an antioxidant supplement was
being reported to help horses with DSLD. This falls in the category
of maximizing their nutrition so that you don't have any preventable
road blocks to keeping the tissues as healthy as they can possibly
be. When DSLD is your starting point, things like this get even more
important.

I always prefer to make supplement recommendations based on hay
analysis. There's no question that is the most accurate way to do it.
That said, many people are not in a position to do this so I've put
together some general recommendations, based on hay analyses, that
should help without causing problems themselves!

All horses not on pasture:

Vitamin E, minimum 2000 IU/day. If your area is low selenium, add 2
mg of selenium. If you use a powdered supplement, be sure to mix it
with a tablespoon or so of oil before feeding to make sure the E is
absorbed well.

E is important for muscle support, antioxidant protection of cell
membranes and deficiency can directly effect the quality of
tendon/ligament:

Journal of Nutrition Vol. 91 No. 1 January 1967
Effect of Vitamin E Deficiency on Collagen Metabolism in the Rat's
Skin1,2,
R. Glenn Brown3,4, Grace M. Button and John T. Smith

Department of Nutrition, University of Tennessee, Knoxville,
Tennessee


The effects of avitaminosis E on collagen metabolism in the skin of
rats were studied. Hides from littermate male rats raised with
vitamin E-sufficient or vitamin E-deficient diets were fractionated
into neutral salt-soluble, acid-soluble and insoluble collagen. The
rate of gel formation at 37°, pH 7.4, of both crude and purified
neutral-salt and acid-soluble collagen solutions from the skin of
these animals was measured together with the stability of those gels
to 4° temperatures for various time periods. It was found that the
animals raised with the vitamin E-deficient diets had a greater
percentage of soluble collagen in their skins. The neutral salt-
soluble collagen solutions from the deficient group did not form gels
as readily as did those from their controls nor were these gels as
stable to 4° temperature. These results suggest a defect in the
formation of intermolecular and intramolecular crosslinkages in the
collagen from the vitamin E-deficient group.
===================================

All horses not on pasture:

Vitamin C, 1 mg/lb of bodyweight/day. C can worse iron overload
symptoms and increase iron absorption, but it's also critical to
connective tissue health. The horse can manufacture enough C to
prevent a full blown deficiency (Scurvy, a nutritional connective
tissue disease), but blood levels fall very low to undetectable over
the winter. This dose is low even compared to intakes on grass.
====================================

Zinc and copper:

Zinc is an almost universal deficiency and another important
antioxidant. High iron intakes depress zinc. Zinc is also directly
involved in collagen synthesis:

Surg Gynecol Obstet. 1981 Mar;152(3):323-6.Links
Influence of zinc on synthesis and the accumulation of collagen in
early granulation tissue.Tengrup I, Ahonen J, Zederfeldt B.
Chronic zinc deficiency causes a delay of reparative processes. The
rate of repair is normalized by the administration of zinc. An acute
lowering of the serum zinc level follows trauma. In a previous
experimental study, it was demonstrated that the intramuscular
administration of zinc beginning before trauma results in an
increased collagen accumulation in early granulation tissue. In this
study, the rate of collagen synthesis was determined to see if the
higher amount of collagen found in early granulation tissue could be
explained by increased collagen synthesis. The rate of collagen
synthesis was studied by the determination of the incorporation of
14C-L-proline into collagen in vivo and in vitro. No difference was
found regarding collagen synthesis in the granulation tissue of rats
in the control and zinc treated groups. Specific activity of
collagen, a measure of newly synthesized collagen in relation to the
total amount of collagen, was found to increase markedly during the
observation time. Further, the specific activity was found to be
lower in the rats of the zinc treated groups than in the rats of the
control groups on days 4 and 5, an indication that, after the
administration of zinc there is more earlier synthesized, not
labeled, collagen present. A possible explanation is that there is a
concomitant synthesis and breakdown of collagen in granulation tissue
and that the rate of breakdown is decreased by the administration of
zinc.

I've talked about copper before as an essential cofactor in the
enzyme lysyl oxidase, forming crosslinks in collagen.

For horses on both coasts and in the northern tier states: 1/2 tsp of
a 50:50 mixture of Poly Copper and Poly Zinc (from www.uckele.com)

For horses along the Gulf Coast (except Florida) and in the mid and
southwest: 1/4 tsp of a 50:50 mixture of Poly Copper and Poly Zinc.
================================

--
Eleanor in PA

www.drkellon.com 
2 for 1 course sale 2018 is on
EC Owner 2001