Adding arginine Amino Acid

Hi All, I feed Tri Amino already but I’d like to add arginine for my horse’s feet. Does anyone know of an amino acid supplement that contains the three in Tri Amino and Arginine? Foxden appears to have one, but doesn’t appear to list the amounts. Thx!

Why not buy l-arginine from Bulksupplements.
I add separate AA’s to Tri-amino for my senior to; I add l-proline, glycine as well as l-glutamine for example. Cheapest and easiest is to buy bulk powders.

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Huh, I’ve never heard of arginine being used for feet. So, if you know me, I had to go searching!

Information seems mixed (not surprising), but this was interesting: at a certain point of oral supplementation, adding l-arginine may impair other AA absorption
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25403187/

This one showed that supplementing gelatin increased plasma arginine
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17402491/

I can’t find any studies showing what level of supplementation, if any, provides value :frowning:

Someone out there needs to do a few credible, equine studies:)

I feed L-citrulline, which converts to L-Arginine- at least in does in humans and it has proved beneficial to those with Type II diabetes.

i just had a full blood work up done on my IR/Cushings horse. The blood was sent to Cornell a week ago today. They told the vet they felt like they were caught up enough (Covid19:( to do the tests in a timely fashion for accurate results. I get to pay the bill today but no results just yet.

Part of my intent for a complete work up is the fact I am feeding L- Citrulline and I want to know if it is having any sort of detectable negative effect.

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I know! long, slow process for animals that don’t support a large industry, as opposed to companion animals (dogs, to a lesser degree cats), or cattle.

I did some digging in the NRC book (online, so I could search!) and found reference (mostly foals, one pregnant mare study) showing that increased quality dietary protein , which really means higher levels of amino acids, which also really means higher levels of lysine, methionine and threonine), contributed to increased absorption of those AAs.

Not just “feed more, have more”, but “feed more, improve digestibility”

Soooo, that might be where I’d start - make doubly sure the amount of quality protein in the diet is appropriately high, and see how the trickle down effect changes things.

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Thank you, all. I’ll try to remember where I saw that tidbit and post it. And…I really didn’t ask the right question. I’m curious about it for horses who may be prone to laminitis. It will help to ask the question prperly🤦.

Michigan State was involved in the research for InsulinWise. I don’t believe it has either citrulline or arginine in it. I believe they had great success w it in the clinical trial, but I was not able to repeat that success w my horse.

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Ohhhh! I did see several studies on that. They used IV arginine to increase nitrous oxide in one study

Ok, going back to try to find THOSE studies, I finally stumbled on one that talks about dose
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26036908

“However, in horses a dose of 1% L-arginine of total dietary intake impaired absorption of other amino acids, whereas a dose of 0.5% did not.”

Granted that’s a study on pregnant mares to see about reduced uterine fluid accumulation, but that dosing statement comes from previous knowledge/study. I found another study which used .0125% on pregnant mares to increase early embryonic growth - not related to your question at all, but just another reference to some dosage that had a positive effect

This one talks about arginine and the insulin response, but they are infusion treatments
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11263835

Which brings me to my " so what the heck to do". I guess if it were me it would be worth trying up to .5% of dietary intake and see what happens. shrug. That’s 46gm if a horse is eating 20lb of hay. But I might even start lower, at .25%.

JB, thank you for the above. And, thank you for understanding my question - even w all the typos. I was in the barn waiting for my pony to wake up after a body work session. I didn’t have my glasses on.

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It’s been used for a while in DSLD/ESPA

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That’s interesting! Can you talk about DSLD a bit more???

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Apparently the arginine increases circulation, and that was supposed to help with the potato, coon footed inflammation? It was not very well researched or supported with anything beyond anecdotal data so I didn’t really spend a lot of time looking at it.

I didn’t use it in my DSLD horse, because the other treatment we used for his other issues were contraindicated with the l arginine.
Meanwhile those treatments did help the DSLD symptoms.

If L-citrulline and L-arginine make it into the blood stream to get to the hooves, know that they are precursers to nitric oxide production in your horse’s endothelial cells (which line the vessels) and can affect vascular tone, blood pressure and heart rate.

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Thank you. What did you use???

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Thank you for this, as well.

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  1. I am updating my post #4. I had the test results in-hand last Thursday but I was waiting for the vet to call me.

The best news is that my horse’s ACTH numbers dropped from 93 in late March, 2019 to 10.5 this May! This explains why he has shed out like a healthy horse would and also why the swelling in the gland in his throat latch has gone completely down.

  1. The vet also stated the protein levels for this horse are well within normal range. That’s important because I feed him an additional 1000mg of citrulline daily, divided in two feedings.

  2. I quoted J-Lu;n because I don’t take the comment lightly. I tried to research but anything I found is not in layman’s terms. I can “get” something if it’s written so I can understand it:)

The comment “—it can affect vascular tone—“. Does that only mean to the good when the correct amount is fed for that horse, or can it also mean to the negative if the horse is fed too much.

  1. As I commented somewhere else, I stumbled onto L-Citrulline by accident, when I was feeding watermelon & the rind over the summer. I noticed he was getting thru fall frost without any laminitic issues so I researched watermelon and discovered it is full of L-Citrulline. Research of what L-Citrulline does, led me to credible human studies of its benefit for Type II diabetics.

4.1. FWIW, 2019 & 2020 insulin, glucose, CBC, Complete Chemistry Panel were all done by Cornell, making comparisons of those things I understand easy:)

Anyway, it is nothing short of a miracle my horse’s ACTH numbers dropped 82.5 points since he went on 1/2 mg daily of Prascend in November, 2019. I know Cushings is a gradual debilitating disease but with this great news, I am at least hoping I can keep its progress slowed down to creeper gear for my 25 yr old:)

Good for you and your pony!!! Thank you SO much for sharing this.

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Please let me clarify. Those substances are precursors. The enzyme nitric oxide synthase utilizes these precursors to produce the gas nitric oxide. Nitric oxide diffuses out of vascular endothelial cells to neighboring smooth muscle cells and makes them relax. When they relax, blood vessels get larger. At a given blood pressure, the larger vessels can support more blood flow because the resistance to blood flow goes down. Think about a hose nozzle with many settings. The “jet” setting (small size) squirt the water at a higher velocity and farther. The “pour” setting is larger and and the water comes out slower and in a larger stream. Imagine that these settings aren’t coming out of you hose, but into a blood vessel. The lining of the blood vessel senses the “fast and narrow” blood flow and the “slow and wide” blood flow.

Here’s a website discussing how these precursors can affect human exercise. Remember, this is just addressing humans and exercise:
https://www.gssiweb.org/sports-scien…se-performance

That can be good if the horse has suboptimal blood flow, such as navicular disease:
https://www.equinehealthlabs.com/the…ness-in-horses

, but bad if it makes the feet have too much blood flow. Increased blood flow can cause laminitis:
https://equine-vets.com/health/l/lam…es-and-ponies/

I would be very wary giving such a supplement. Off the bat, I’d need to know if an oral supplement enters the bloodstream in horses or is just a a waste of money. If there’s evidence to show it enters the bloodstream, I’d be very wary of the effects on my horses’ hooves and general blood pressure. This will vary greatly with each horse (very hot and bothered? Mellow witha “whatever” attitude?) If you have more questions, I’d be happy to find you better directed links and information.

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@J-Lu thank you very much for the information and links:). Lots of reading and digesting - of stuff I never wanted to know about:)

My first experience with metabolic issues was with another horse in 2007. I could spell metabolic and that was it. I received life-saving help for that horse on this forum.

I have a feeling I am going to have to read, re-read and re-read again, everything you have provided but I can’t thank you enough:). It looks like my printer is going to be busy:)

The horse in question is very laid back/mellow and so non-aggressive I keep him separated from the other horse.

Thank you for the above…the more I learn, the more I don’t know. I use Tri Amino. Uckele also recommends Laminox for metabolic horses. It contains 7500 mg of L-Arginine along w a host of other things. The tag line reads “ supports normal, healthy hooves by maintaining hoof pliability and combating excess oxidation”. I know their intent it to market the product…Thoughts??? Thank you.

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