cauda equina
Well-Known Member
Study of racehorses' poo predicts future track success
Scientists found gut microbes in a young foal directly correlate to long-term health and performance.
www.bbc.co.uk
Gut biome study
- Thread starter cauda equina
- Start date
SantaVera
Well-Known Member
Very interesting
Cragrat
Well-Known Member
So avoiding early antibiotics has a big effect - I wonder if early turn out helps widen the gut biome?
Burnttoast
Well-Known Member
From a human point of view I had long-term oral ABs from about 10 to 16 and when my gut biome was tested by Zoe in 2023 I was in the bottom quarter for diversity, despite having a basically healthy diet and lots of time with my hands in all sorts outside. Something fairly catastrophic and possibly metabolic has also happened to me in the last few years (still undiagnosed). I have wondered about any connection.
Jambarissa
Well-Known Member
Interesting but not surprising. Have you been able to improve your gut biome?
I eat 30+ plants a month and no upf but I suspect I'm poor.
Rumtytum
Have Marmite, will travel
I listened to this on R4 earlier. Thought provoking.Study of racehorses' poo predicts future track success
Scientists found gut microbes in a young foal directly correlate to long-term health and performance.www.bbc.co.uk
Burnttoast
Well-Known Member
Slightly - I had a retest after about 5 months and had just popped over the upper boundary of the bottom quartile. They won't test me again so I don't know about further progress sadly - I could get it tested elsewhere but for purposes of comparison that might not be helpful. I have IBS and had been eating a low-fibre diet, which won't have helped, but not too many UPFs. I still have to be careful about my fibre sources (most beans and pulses are a bit dodgy) but I've more or less tripled my fibre intake to 20-24g a day by using things like cacao and baobab fruit powder, seeds, bulgur wheat, houmous and oats. I also don't have a big appetite so a large plate of veg just doesn't get eaten. Also got my UFPs down to about 3% or less, depending on the day.
Fieldlife
Well-Known Member
upf?
skinnydipper
Well-Known Member
In humans there is microbiome transfer from mother to baby. Would it be a good idea to feed the mare a diet to improve gut microbial diversity prior to birth? I don't know if that's possible, I don't know anything about horses.
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Fieldlife
Well-Known Member
Have you tried things like kefir and Symprove? I have both. I make my own milk kefir and used to buy mango and passionfruit flavoured kefir from supermarket.
I also take a female health recommended probiotic tablet. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07BP7KP3K/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
All I think have really aided my gut bacteria population - I used to be very unstable blood sugar and very sugar sensitive. Not any more. And I score in top quartile on Zoe gut bacteria. I didnt test best starting Kefir though, I think that is the cause of the loss of sugar sensitivity.
Jambarissa
Well-Known Member
I have kefir and saurkraut and kimchi. Small amounts every day, can't hurt.
Burnttoast
Well-Known Member
I made milk kefir for quite a while but that was a few years ago - I don't have kitchen space atm but hopefully will soon so am hoping to start again. I have done a couple of courses of symprove, one a few months before I started Zoe after a(nother) big course of ABs in case of Lyme disease. All my Zoe testing was after my illness or whatever this is started though of course no way to know about the relevance of that. One particularly weird thing I discovered when wearing the 2-week CGM for Zoe was that despite my daytime blood sugar being quite unremarkable I had regular deep nighttime hypos and I wonder if they caused my terrible sleep and feeling awful on waking. I've just ordered another CGM to check for those dips again. The doctor just shrugged her shoulders when I asked about them but if they reappear this time I may ask for yet more tests. Or repeats of the ones I've already had.....
Burnttoast
Well-Known Member
Ultra-processed foods
Jambarissa
Well-Known Member
Ultra processed foods
There are a few definitions really, there's a ranking called NOVA which classifies ingredients. Basically emulsifiers, chemically extracted oils, transfats are bad and veg is good.
I take it beyond ingredients and think about processing. A smoothy is much worse for you than eating the fruit even though it's identical in terms of ingredients and carbs/protein/fat/sugar/fibre.
I apply this to horse feed too. Fast Fibre has decent ingredients but they're ground to a powder so the fibre isn't as beneficial to the microbes and it'll be processed much faster and hit the bloodstream quickly.
Burnttoast
Well-Known Member
The oily herbs that get mentioned on here quite often are aimed at that. Equibiome is where that advice came from originally and they test horse biomes and sell a variety of supplements aimed at specific gut issues, though it seems that a lot of people get good results just from the herbs. So that should be possible - but how the biomes of the vagina and gut match up or whether there's any relationship between them I don't know? I suppose there must be some transfer simply because of anatomy.
Burnttoast
Well-Known Member
Yes I prefer just to forage for whole plant extras for the ponies, or feed whole-ish plants (eg chopped herbs, not powdered). The fibre fruit powders I use for myself are in the absence of the real thing fresh - I hope they are still helpful for the fibre.
tda
Well-Known Member
This is why foals often eat their mothers poo I imagine
druid
Well-Known Member
There's lots of nice studies in humans showing that your gut biome is directly dervied from your mother's if you were a vaginal delivery. C-section babies have much lower diversity.
There's also nice work going on with atopy in dogs and supporting gut biome to improve skin function. Simple things similar to the 30 plants idea with exposing dogs to small amounts of different/novel "toppers" are being looked at
There's also nice work going on with atopy in dogs and supporting gut biome to improve skin function. Simple things similar to the 30 plants idea with exposing dogs to small amounts of different/novel "toppers" are being looked at
Dave's Mam
Well-Known Member
I was just about to say the same. In fact a friend posted about a new foal had a good meal of Mam's poo followed by a good drink at the milk bar.
Got to be a good start!
Lois Lame
Well-Known Member
I think it happens way before that, during vaginal delivery. Same for human babies of course. (ETA: I've heard that human babies born by caesarian are lacking.)
Lois Lame
Well-Known Member
Doh! You beat me to it.
cariadbach10
Well-Known Member
Our foal was given a shot of antibiotics as a matter of course by the vet that visited the day he was born to take his IG blood sample. I was in such a state of sleep deprivation (the first foal we have bred and overdue) that I didn’t have the energy to question it. But I will definitely do do should we breed again. We also have cattle and sheep and I know that a lot of good work has been done in reducing overuse of antibiotics in this sector. Shame the equine sector isn’t catching up as much.