New Research Shows a Novel Combination of Ingredients Supports a Multifaceted Strategy to Improve Joint and GI Health with Nutrition

Since 1996, Platinum Performance® has been committed to promoting wellness in horses, with a philosophy that food is medicine and preserving the fact that a natural grazing diet is essential to every horse’s health. What a horse eats affects its entire body, beginning within at the cellular level and impacting how the animal looks, feels and behaves. Science supports that the most beneficial equine diet encompasses quality pasture forage or hay that is supplemented with complementary nutrients to balance the diet — forage for fiber and proper digestion and gut health, with supplements to address nutrient deficiencies. A healthy digestive system is closely linked to weight management and immune health. Along with gut health, the other top concern in horses affecting all ages, breeds and activity levels, is joint care — one of the most discussed equine health categories. Efforts to keep joints healthy, sound and functioning optimally is a perpetual focus area of horse owners and veterinarians alike. Along with proven wellness nutrition focused on the roles of omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants, new and innovative ingredients including tamarind seed extract, turmeric root extract and yeast extracts are providing advanced digestive and targeted joint support for total horse health.

When grass is cut, dried and stored to make hay, most of the fragile fatty acids and fat-soluble vitamins are quickly oxidized and destroyed. Supplementation can help rebalance the fatty acid profile toward that of a natural grazing diet and support normal levels of inflammation.

When grass is cut, dried and stored to make hay, most of the fragile fatty acids and fat-soluble vitamins are quickly oxidized and destroyed. Supplementation can help rebalance the fatty acid profile toward that of a natural grazing diet and support normal levels of inflammation.

Wellness is Systemic Health

Nutrition is the cornerstone of a healthy horse. A balanced diet with adequate fiber levels, calories, essential fatty acids, antioxidants, amino acids, vitamins and minerals supplies the body with a strong foundation for daily wellness, tissue repair and fuels growth in young horses. The day-to-day diet affects a normal, healthy inflammatory response, can limit oxidative stress and supports immune health — all critical for systemic health and longevity.

Food plays a role. As a grazing herbivore, horses have evolved on a natural foraging diet that contains a fatty acid ratio of up to five times the total amount of omega-3 fatty acids than omega-6 fats. Because of this, horses are often considered “omega-3 animals” and thrive on a grass-based diet. Omega-3 and omega-6 fats are both necessary for the well-being of the animal, but the dietary ratio is critical to maintain normal, healthy levels of inflammation.

Not all horses have access to fresh grass, and a typical modern equine diet often includes a combination of forage, cereal grains, grain-based commercial feeds or concentrates. The equine digestive system is not designed to support a diet high in grain intake. Cereal grains — corn, oats, barley and wheat — and grain-based feeds provide excessive amounts of sugar or starch and an unhealthy ratio of essential fatty acids. Common feeding practices that include meal settings made up of grains and grain-based concentrated feeds have caused a widespread inverse essential fat ratio, drastically increasing the omega-6 fat concentration in the diet while decreasing the total amount of omega-3 fats. Also, when grass is cut, dried and stored to make hay, most of the fragile fatty acids and fat-soluble vitamins are quickly oxidized and destroyed. Supplementation with omega- 3 fatty acids can help rebalance the fatty acid profile toward that of a natural grazing diet and support normal levels of inflammation.

Antioxidants are another important component of feeding for wellness. Free radicals are chemicals produced in a horse’s body as a result of normal metabolism, or in response to exercise, inhalation of dust and air pollutants, and exposure to ultraviolet light. These unstable molecules can also become excessive following an injury. Oxidative stress occurs when there is an imbalance between the production of free radicals and the body’s ability to neutralize them with antioxidants. Oxidative stress can overpower the horse’s ability to internally defend itself and may result in tissue damage. Antioxidants internally scavenge and neutralize free radicals and prevent or limit oxidative stress. Providing dietary antioxidants can address oxidative stress in exercising horses, horses with bodily stressors, including a high-grain diet. Familiar antioxidants are vitamins C, E and beta-carotene, which is converted into vitamin A in the small intestine. Moreover, the trace minerals copper, zinc, manganese, iron, and selenium are essential for the internal formation of enzymatic antioxidants.

A New Way: Novel Nutrients to Support Digestion and Joint Care

Digestion

Beyond fulfilling basic dietary requirements for wellness, nutrition through targeted supplementation can be used therapeutically. Certain nutrients are able to support specific health areas, such as the gastrointestinal system. Proper digestion and a healthy gut microbiome — the diverse community of fiber-digesting bacteria, protozoa, fungi and other microbes in the hindgut — influence many different areas of equine health. Balancing the microbiome helps maintain healthy inflammation levels that in turn promote a wide variety of benefits to systemic health, particularly in support of the immune system. The digestive system and immune health are closely correlated. Creating a healthy gut environment significantly supports immune health as over 70% of the immune system resides in the gut.

Prebiotics, probiotics and postbiotics support normal digestion as well as maintain the vast gut microbiome. They nourish the gut and support hindgut health, gut motility, feed efficiency and much more. Due to the unique and diverse population of the microbiome, veterinarians recommend providing multiple strains of pre- and probiotics to improve gut health. A new proprietary blend of extracts derived from two active yeasts, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Cyberlindnera jadinii, selected for their complementary properties, provides synergy to support digestive balance, intestinal integrity and gut barrier function, as well as a healthy immune response. Live yeast-based probiotic strains (Saccharomyces c. boulardii 1079 and Saccharomyces cerevisiae 1077) and mannan oligosaccharides (MOS), support normal digestion and intestinal cellular turnover and repair. The amino acid glutamine (L-glutamine) helps maintain a healthy gut and digestive system by supporting the gut lining and intestinal cell barrier, as well as supporting healthy gut inflammation. Omega-3 fatty acids support healthy inflammatory levels improving the intestine’s ability to absorb nutrients.

Important digestive benefits from the botanical extracts of tamarind seed (Tamarindus indica) and turmeric root (Curcuma longa) further support gastrointestinal health by promoting healthy inflammation levels in the digestive tract. These nutrients work together to support a healthy GI environment as well as to preserve immune health by supporting the maintenance of gut barrier function along with intestinal wall thickness. Tamarind and turmeric extracts contribute major antioxidant benefits, promoting oxidative balance and reducing oxidative stress.