From grain overload and colic to metritis (inflammation of the lining of the uterus) and limb injuries, laminitis has many causes. Could the inflammatory side effects of insulin resistance and equine metabolic syndrome be one of them? A team of researchers from Virginia Tech recently examined that scenario.

"Previous studies have shown that the link between these seemingly unrelated causes of laminitis has to do with inflammatory events somewhere in the body, other than the feet," relayed Jessica Suagee, PhD, a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Animal and Poultry Sciences at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va.

With this knowledge in hand, Suagee and colleagues set out to determine whether inflammation was involved in the development of chronic laminitis that sometimes occurs in obese horses with equine metabolic syndrome (EMS).

"We know that hyperinsulinemia (insulin resistance) in other species has an inflammatory aspect, and it is possible that it is the high circulating insulin levels in horses with EMS that drives an increase in inflammation in obese EMS horses," explained Suagee