What is the starch and sugars concentration in Omegatin® and Dynasty® products?
There is interest in knowing the starch and sugars content of an equine diet. Starch and sugars are digested and absorbed in the horse’s small intestine. When the starch and sugars are digested, glucose is the major sugar absorbed by the horse. For performance horse, glucose serves as the major substrate for replenishing muscle and liver glycogen (animal storage of energy) after exercise. It is important that sufficient starch and sugars be in the diet for this process. On the other hand, too much starch and sugars in the diet can contribute to or aggravate problems of special needs horses. These special needs horses include horses with recurrent equine rhabdomyolysis (RER), polysaccharide storage myopathy (PSSM), Cushing’s symdrome, and developmental orthopedic disease (DOD). It is important the grain product fed to these horses have limited sugars and starches – with the available, practical ingredients it is not possible to eliminate sugar and starches. To improve our capability to
