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Plasma insulin concentration is affected by body condition in Icelandic horses

Article in Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica · September 2015

DOI: 10.1186/1751-0147-57-S1-O1

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 Jansson et al. Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica 2015, 57(Suppl 1):O1
http://www.actavetscand.com/content/57/S1/O1

ORAL PRESENTATION Open Access

Plasma insulin concentration is affected by body

condition in Icelandic horses
Anna Jansson1,2, Gudrun Stefansdottir1,2*, Juan Carlos Rey Torres1, Sveinn Ragnarsson2
From Animal Obesity - causes, consequences and comparative aspects
Uppsala, Sweden. 14-16 June 2015

Introduction
Little is known about the variation in plasma insulin
levels in Icelandic horses and factors that influence it.
Objectives
The aim was to describe the variation in plasma insulin
levels in a group of healthy Icelandic horses showed at a
breed evaluation field test (evaluation of gaits under rider
and conformation) and to document possible relationships
between insulin levels and sex, age, body weight, height,
body condition score (BCS) and management such as sub-
Conclusion
In Icelandic horses considered to be fit for a breed eva-
luation field test, plasma insulin levels increased not
only due to increased concentrate intake as could be
expected, but also to a considerable extent due to an
increase in BCS.
Authors’ details
1
Department of Animal Nutrition and Management, Swedish University of
Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden. 2Department of Equine Science,
Holar University College, Holar, Iceland.

jective level of fitness, travel time and daily forage and Published: 25 September 2015
concentrate allowance.

Methods doi:10.1186/1751-0147-57-S1-O1
Data from 201 horses were collected (4-11 years). Body Cite this article as: Jansson et al.: Plasma insulin concentration is
condition score was assessed using a 5-degree scale. A affected by body condition in Icelandic horses. Acta Veterinaria
Scandinavica 2015 57(Suppl 1):O1.
venous blood sample was taken before the gait test.
Plasma insulin were analysed in duplicates by ELISA
and between samples variation was <10%. ANOVA
(mixed model) was used (effects considered significant
at p<0.05).

Results
Plasma insulin levels ranged from 0.01 to 0.60 µg/L.
Concentrate allowance and BCS had a significant effect
Submit your next manuscript to BioMed Central
on the plasma insulin level. BCS ranged from 2.3 to 4.0
and take full advantage of:
(approximately 4 to 7 on a 9-degree scale) and concen-
trate allowance from 0 to 4 kg. For one degree of • Convenient online submission
increase in BCS, log-insulin increased with 0.45 µg/L • Thorough peer review
and for every kilo of increase in the concentrate allow- • No space constraints or color figure charges
ance, log-insulin increased with 0.26 µg/L. • Immediate publication on acceptance
• Inclusion in PubMed, CAS, Scopus and Google Scholar
• Research which is freely available for redistribution
* Correspondence: gudrunst@holar.is
1
Department of Animal Nutrition and Management, Swedish University of Submit your manuscript at
Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden www.biomedcentral.com/submit
Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
© 2015 Jansson et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/
zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

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