80 Preliminary investigation of gastro-well on Equine Glandular Gastric Disease prevalence in competition horses

Abstract

The European College of Equine Internal Medicine (ECEIM) has expanded the nomenclature surrounding EGUS to 2 distinct diseases with differences in pathophysiology, risk factors, treatment response, and grading systems: Equine Squamous Gastric Disease (ESGD) and Equine Glandular Gastric Disease (EGGD). Although the mechanism, risk factors and pathophysiology of ESGD is well characterized, the mechanism of EGGD still requires elucidation, which may explain the ECEIM recommendation to move away from using fasting models to investigate therapeutic efficacy of nutraceuticals and drugs in naturally occurring disease states. Further most of the previous work in nutraceuticals either does not delineate location of ulcer or focuses on squamous tissue. Recently, the nutraceutical, Gastro-Well (GW; Probiotech International Inc.), was able to reduce naturally occurring EGUS in competition horses after 4wk but did not specify the ulcer location. The objective of this preliminary study was to examine GW, a proprietary blend of minerals, prebiotics, yeast, and psyllium, on performance horses with EGGD. Six mature (7–16y) competition horses with a history of EGGD were enrolled in the study. Two weeks before the initialgastroscopes, all nutraceuticals and medications for EGGD ceased. Gastroscopes were performed on d 0 and after 30d of GW supplementation at 360g/d. Because the ECEIM recommends a descriptive system to assess glandular ulcers without a numeric designation as in the squamous scoring system, images of the glandular ulcers from the gastroscopic examinations were sent in randomized pairs to a veterinarian blinded to order, to determine which image looked healthier based on the ECEIM description of EGGD or if there was no difference. Positive response to GW was determined when the post-image was deemed healthier. The binary data was analyzed by Chi-squared to determine statistical significance (P < 0.05) and trends (P < 0.10). There was a trend (P = 0.08) for positive response to GW. The result demonstrates that GW may have the potential to support glandular gastric health in at-risk competition horses with EGGD. Further research is warranted to replicate these findings with a larger sample size.