Podcast #057 – Protein and Gastric Ulcers In Horses

Equine Gastric Ulcer Syndrome, or EGUS, is being treated in more horses today than almost any other disease considered “routine.” The advent of visualizing the stomach lining using a fiber-optic endoscope is now available to nearly every horse owner through their local veterinarian. In addition, medicines are available to treat horses suffering from this condition, and they are effective.

Nutritional changes are a basis for improving horses’ health. Still, few have associated a specific nutritional change in concomitant use with prescribed medication to enhance the effectiveness of using the medicine alone.

In this podcast, I discuss a study where horses with EGUS are treated with omeprazole (Prilosec in humans and GastroGuard in horses) alone or with porcine hydrolyzed collagen. Adding the collagen protein had a local effect in reducing the number of gastric ulcers in the non-glandular portion of the stomach.

I add that the benefit of collagen is the amino acid glycine which is beneficial to maintaining all connective tissue, including the lining of the gastrointestinal tract. I hypothesize that preventing gastric ulcers (and ulcers in other parts of the gut) may be another benefit of the addition of high-quality protein to horse diets.