A study completed by Drs. Savannah Gregg, Madison Barshick and Sally Johnson, all in the School of Animal Sciences at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, sought to determine whether weekly sodium hyaluronate injections suppressed inflammation in the skeletal muscles of horses.
Hyaluronic acid occurs naturally in the matrix of most body tissue and helps to maintain proper joint movement and lubrication, but hyaluronic acid dissipates with age. Horses can receive hyaluronic acid supplementation, either through injections or orally, to suppress inflammation.
The researchers used 12 healthy and sound Thoroughbred geldings that were unfit for their study. Half received sodium hyaluronate injections via jugular for three weeks per manufacturer's instruction. The other six horses served as controls.
Muscle biopsies were taken from the gluteus medius, the largest muscle on the horse, before the study began, before an exercise test, and one hour after the test was completed.
Two weeks after the final injection and two hours after eating, each horse was fitted with a heart-rate monitor and completed an exercise test, which the team hypothesized would initiate an acute inflammatory state in skeletal muscles. They theorized that the inflammatory response would show neutrophil and macrophage release as the horse's body attempted to begin removing the damaged and necrotic cell material.
The study found that the sodium hyaluronate injections suppressed baseline inflammatory gene expression, but the genes were not irreversibly downregulated; they increased expression after the horse's body was stressed from exercise.
They note that hyaluronic acid supplementation can be an anti-inflammatory, but that it fails in suppressing inflammation in the long term once inflammation occurs. Neutrophils and macrophages were found to be greater after exercise in all horses.
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