Understanding Atypical Myopathy

Atypical myopathy–a sudden onset of acute muscle pain and damage–is related to pasture rather than exercise.
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Imagine that one minute your horse is grazing idly in the pasture, and the next minute he’s lying down and unable to rise. In Europe and sporadically throughout the United States, this scene is occurring more and more frequently. The cause? A condition called atypical myopathy–the sudden onset of acute myopathy (muscle pain and damage) that is not related to exercise, but rather pasture.

"Atypical myopthay is a serious concern because it is highly fatal and is considered an emerging disease in Europe. Since 2000 more than 1,000 horses have been either diagnosed or thought to be afflicted with this emerging disease, according to the ‘Atypical Myopathy Alert Group,’ " said Dominique Votion, DVM, PhD, from the Equine Clinic at Belgium’s University of Liege, at the 12th Congress of The World Equine Veterinary Association, held Nov. 2-6 in Hyderabad, India.

"Major advances have recently been made to help us understand what causes atypical myopathy and how to prevent it," Votion explained.

Scientists now know that horses with atypical myopathy have a defect in how fats–not carbohydrates–are metabolized by the microscopic "power horse" organelles inside muscle cells called mitochondria. Due to this defect, energy is not produced properly from fats, causing the horse to show signs of muscle weakness and can become recumbent (unable to rise) very quickly

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