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Study Shows Possible Link Between Equine Obesity And Asthma

It's been proven that carrying extra pounds can cause humans to develop asthma, and researchers are now attempting to find a link between obesity and breathing issues in horses.

Texas A&M and the Morris Animal Foundation are funding research on the debilitating condition. Currently, the main treatment option for asthmatic horses is the use of corticosteroids, which can cause laminitis in overweight equines.

Texas A&M researcher Dr. Michelle Coleman intends to use 60 horses brought to the University's veterinary teaching hospital for the study. The research team will assess each horse's body condition, identify if they have insulin issues, and determine their asthmatic state by listening to their lungs and taking fluid samples from their lower airways. The horses will be divided into four groups of 15: Obese and asthmatic, non-obese and asthmatic, obese and healthy, and non-obese and healthy.

Each group will be examined for inflammation markers, including cytokine levels. The cytokine levels in humans differ between obese asthmatic people and non-obese asthmatic people. The study will also look at each horse's lung microbiota to see if there is a difference in obese asthmatic horses and non-obese asthmatic horses.

Researchers hope the results from the study will allow horse owners and veterinarians to identify horses at higher asthmatic risk and assist in preventing asthma or intervening in such situations earlier.

A Stinky Situation: Horses Can Smell Human Fear

A study from Poland has shown that horses are able to smell human emotions – including fear.

Dr. Agnieszka Sabiniewicza and her research team collected body odor samples from 10 people who were either happy or fearful to see if the emotional states elicited different responses in horses exposed to them.

The researchers asked the people involved in the study to avoid smoking, smelly foods, exercise, and alcohol for multiple days. They also asked them to wash their clothes in a perfume-free detergent. The scientists then showed the people a cartoon or a horror video while they were wearing sterile pads in their armpits. The pads were collected and frozen to preserve their odor.

The team exposed 21 adult horses to the pads that the fearful or happy humans had worn; the horses were also exposed to pads that were not worn at all, which served as the control.

For the test, two people stood in different corners of the stall while each horse was shown the pads. One person was familiar to the horse and the other was unknown. Neither person interacted with the horse. A pole with four odor pads (either all fearful, all happy or all control) was shown to the horse.

The team found that the horses exposed to the fearful odor raised their heads more frequently and for longer periods of time. These horses also touched the familiar person in their stall more frequently and for longer than they did when exposed to the control or happiness odors.

The team concluded that human body odor alone can serve as an indicator of human emotion and can cause horses to behave differently.

Training Time, Season, Gender May Play Role In EIPH For Steeplechasers

A study completed by the Royal Veterinary College has shown that the amount of training steeplechase horses undergo significantly increases the chance of them suffering from exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage (EIPH). EIPH is most frequently seen in Thoroughbred and Standardbred racehorses, and can cause significant performance issues.

The exact cause of the condition is unknown, though some believe it's a result of pulmonary capillary stress failure. This occurs when the blood-gas barrier in the alveoli is broken during intense exercise.

Drs. Tegan McGilvray and Jacqueline Cardwell used 177 racehorses in the British National Hunt to test for the prevalence of EIPH using a tracheobronchoscopy and a tracheal wash. In addition to blood, the researchers tested for the presence of hemosiderophages, which are cells that indicate previous lung bleeding.

Tracheal blood was found in 26 percent of the horses, hemosiderophages in 94 percent of the horses) and “significant” hemosiderophages in 78 percent of the horses.

The team drew these conclusions:

Each year in training increased the chances of tracheal blood and the presence of hemosiderophages by 1.5 percent.
Male horses had 85 percent less of a chance of bleeding than female horses
Tracheal blood was twice as likely to be see in winter and spring than in the fall
Horses with significant hemosiderophages were five times more likely to tracheal blood
Horses completing high-impact work were 60 times more likely to have tracheal blood

The researchers' findings support the capillary stress failure theory. Increased time in training causes “cumulative remodeling of the pulmonary vasculature, increasing susceptibility to EIPH through capillary stress failure with ongoing training.”

They note that EIPH may not be avoidable, but identifying horses at risk of the condition will be helpful in determining preventative measures in the future.

Read the article here.

Let Them Eat: Horses Undergoing Non-Abdominal Surgery May Be Better Off Eating

Much like human doctors, veterinarians often recommended that horses slated for surgery fast before undergoing anesthesia. In humans, this reduces the risk of the development of aspiration pneumonia; in horses it was thought to decrease the risk of post-operative colic. However, a study has shown that there may be no need for horses scheduled for non-abdominal surgery to refrain from eating.

A retrospective study over a two-year period used 1,965 horses older than two years old that were referred to the Oakridge Equine Hospital in Edmond, Okla., for non-emergency, non-abdominal procedures. The horses had not fasted prior to their surgeries.

Dr. Patricia Baily and her study team found that only 2.5 percent of the horses that had not been fasted became colicky. They also found no correlation between the age of the horse, the surgery performed or the duration of the anesthesia and colic risk.

The scientists conclude that allowing a horse to eat prior to undergoing general anesthesia for a non-abdominal surgery doesn't increase his colic risk. In fact, allowing the horse to eat may help him maintain gut motility, reducing the risk of post-operative colic.