Good evening, everybody, and welcome to this Wednesday at the end of May. My name is Bruce Stevenson, and I have the honour and privilege of chairing tonight's webinar on behalf of the webinar vet. And a big, big thank you to our sponsors, Kirafi tonight.
It is their generous sponsorship that has brought us this webinar and has allowed us all to attend, for free. Little bit of housekeeping for those of you that haven't been on a webinar with us before. We are recording the webinar, so if you miss something, we can't rewind slides or go back.
But the recording will be up, on the website in the next 24 to 36 hours. And then you can go back and you can look at it and rewind and stop it and get any further information that you want to from any of the slides. If you have any questions from for our presenter, simply move your mouse over the screen.
You'll see the little Q&A bar pops up at the bottom. Just click on that, type the question in there. They'll come through to me and we will hold those over to the end.
So our presenter tonight, is Valerie. And Valerie as an entrepreneur and doctor of veterinary medicine, has a passion for animals that led her to found Curafeet, a natural supplements business for dogs and horses that focuses on enhancing their health through herbal supplements and care products. Further development to further develop her leadership skills, strategic thinking, and corporate finance knowledge, she pursued an MBA degree, summa cum laude, at Lerik Business School.
Despite limited previous experience in finance and economics, she ranked in the top three of her MBA class of 2019, demonstrating her eagerness to learn. Valerie has gained extensive work experience in diverse environments such as hospitals, startups, and corporate settings across multiple countries including the USA, Switzerland, Dubai, and France. This has enabled her to cultivate a can-do mentality, flexibility, entrepreneurial spirit, and cross-cultural skills, providing her with unique insights into the healthcare sector from various perspectives.
As the founder of Curafeet and a veterinarian, she is well equipped to offer expert guidance and advice. Valerie, welcome to the webinar vet and it's over to you. Thank you very much, Bruce.
Thank you for the introduction, and welcome everybody to, my first life webinar. So I'm happy that you're all joining me tonight, and I will give you some more information about the importance of a healthy gut microbiome in horses. I think I can skip this part as Bruce already did an extensive, .
Introduction. So, yeah, maybe just on the personal side. I also have 2 kids and a lot of animals, but for the rest, I think everything has been set.
So I will provide you with an overview of recent research and link that to how we developed a products that also supports the gut microbiome in horses. So I will first talk about the importance of the gut microbiome. Second, I will talk about the functions of the gut microbiome, and then also the recovery of the gut ecosystem.
So actually, we and our horse, we are more microbe than animal, and that's why the microbiome is so important. And if there is a disbalance in the microbiome, it can lead to a lot of health issues. So we have various microbiomes in the body and the composition changes by the anatomical location.
So you have a different microbiome in the ear, you have a different microbiome in the skin, on the gut, the vagina, the lungs, the, the mouth. So on all parts of the body, the microbiome is different, but in general, the factors that influence the microbiome, they have an impact on almost all microbiomes, unless there's, of course, a local antibiotic or something like that. So when we look at the microbiome in horses, there is a study that researched the microbiome over the years and they see that the domestication of the horse has actually reduced the diversity of the microbiome.
And the factors that have the biggest impact on the gut microbiome in horses are age, breed, and gender, and then, of course, the extrinsic factors, environments, pasture, transport, diet, fasting, contact with humans, medication, and also veterinary, contact with veterinarians. So we can clearly see in this study. That's because of the domestication, the microbiome is less diverse, which makes the horse more vulnerable to gastrointestinal issues.
When we look at the development of the gut microbiome, yeah, this is an image of, of humans, but the same applies a little bit to, horses. The only difference is that, yeah, the, the factors impacting the microbiome are different, but those I discussed in the previous satellites. But how the microbiome develops is is the same, so.
Actually, the microbiome, the first time when you, the, the, the fall develops, it is at birth. So during birth, the fall comes in contact with the micro microbiome of the vagina. And that's actually the first time that it's ingests the the microbiota, and after that it starts developing and enriching the microbiome.
And then at adulthood, it's the microbiome is at its most diverse, and with increasing age, it's declines again. And that's also a slide is, is important because it highlights the importance of also a healthy gut microbiome of the mare during pregnancy because if the mare doesn't have a good microbiome in the vagina, then the whole already has a bad start to develop the microbiome. So also during pregnancy mares, it's important to already strengthen the microbiome of the mare.
Hm. When we look at the microbiome of horses in general, then we see that actually horses have a low number of key strains, and that, is a possible explanation why the horse is so sensitive for gastrointestinal issues. In this study, they compared, different diets on the horse's microbiome, and you can clearly see that a horse that's fed on hay has a richer microbiome than one that's fed on grain.
And this one was oil, so that also has a little bit of a negative impact on the microbiome. Then if we look at the functions of the gut microbiome, you can see that these are very diverse. And that's also why this balance in the microbiome has such a big impact.
So the gut is also called the second brain, and that's because it's a very complex ecosystem with its own nervous system and numerous functions. So, besides breaking down the food and digesting the food, the microbiome plays an important role in a lot of other different functions. So it will also stimulate the immune system.
It will metabolise medication, it will biosynthesize vitamins and amino acids such as vitamin B12, vitamin K. It promotes angiogenesis, it helps in the fat storage. It modulates also bone mass density, it protects the body's largest mucosal surface, yeah, the gut, of course.
It protects against pathogens and it also modifies the nervous system. So it's not a surprise that's when something goes wrong in the microbiome that just has a huge impact on the overall health of the horse. So when we look at I when an imbalance gut microbiome, this can lead to a lot of problems.
On the left, you can see the health, the, the diseases that already are linked in humans to an unhealthy gut microbiome, and you can see that these are very broad, so they can be linked to metabolic, issues, gets can get gut skins, so, skin issues. Heart diseases, and now also the good brain access has become a hot topic in research, so they can also show that even depression, autism, and other Mental health issues are linked to an unhealthy gut microbiome, then also the gut lung axis is quite important, so asthma, . And all kind of allergic diseases are linked to an unhealthy microbiome.
In horses, there is of course less research done, but these are the three diseases that are already linked to an unhealthy gut microbiome, so equine gras sickness, colitis, and laminitis. And then a third, an important disease that is also, that starts actually with an unbalanced gut microbiome is the equine leaky gut syndrome. So this is a disease that it's often talked about in humans, but in horses there are not that many studies yet.
But what happens in equine leaky gut syndrome is that this biosis in the guts, results in damage to the intestinal mucosa, and this leads then to an impaired, nutrition. To an impaired absorption of the nutrients and it also leads to inflammation and these inflammatory triggers, they will disrupt the integrity of the di junctions in the gut barrier, and this causes an increase in permeability. And then bad bacteria and other harmful substances can enter the bloodstream, and this can lead to a lot of health issues, including immune, problems and all kind of .
Yeah, fake symptoms. So actually the typical patient that you can see with equine leaky gut syndrome in practise is a horse that's in general not doing well, but there is not really a clear diagnosis, so it has a dull coat. It has typically quite a bloated belly, but the top line is skinny, so it's losing muscles on the top line, .
And, yeah, often also growth retardation and falls, for example, and then skin-related issues and allergies. It's of course quite hard also to diagnose the disease. The only way to really diagnose this is by taking a biopsy, but for that you need to do a laparoscopy, so, yeah, that's not something that you can do, in first line practise.
This slide, I want to show the importance of being careful with antibiotics because for some antibiotics, it can take up to 4 years before the gut microbiome can fully recover. So, that's something that in, in human research. There has been a lot of research done about this.
In horses, it's again, more limited, but they do see, yeah, everybody knows the negative side effects of antibiotics. So, diarrhoea, colitis, nephrotoxicity, hypertension, fever. These are some of the negative side effects and then of course the disbalance in the microbiome.
So, in human medicine, what is now the standard protocol in a lot of clinics is that they actually start administering probiotics together with antibiotics and then they continue the probiotics for a minimum of 2 weeks after the start of the antibiotics, and they they can show that this actually protects the mucosal cells more and also helps to decrease the, the detrimental effect of the antibiotics on the gut microbiome. So how can we now help to recover the gut ecosystem? So it's really an ecosystem, so it's important that you also approach it from a holistic approach and that you, yeah, make sure that all the different pieces of the ecosystem are healthy and that you're not just focus on one.
So I think that's the biggest, Key for success. Because what you typically see in, in a lot of supplements on the market is that they just have pro and prebiotics, in them, but if you forget to actually also make sure that the intestinal cells are healthy and that the junctions are healthy, yeah, if those are not healthy, then also the probiotics, they won't have any effects. So that's quite important.
And of course, the most important part of restoring the gut ecosystem is a balanced diet, which is high in fibres and poor in sugars, so that's the basics. But often a standard diet is not enough and it's, it's lacking some essential, nutrients and nutraceuticals, and therefore, in, in patients with equal syndrome, it can be helpful to add this to the diet through supplementation. So, this study is a, a recent, review study that's approaches, that's gives them a nutritional approach towards equine leaky gut syndrome, and they also have this same holistic approach where they say, OK, first you have to make sure that the intestinal cells are healthy, then you have to restore the barriers, the thigh junctions, then you need to Enrich the microbiome with probiotics, and then you also have to feed these probiotics with the right prebiotics.
So this is also the approach that we used when developing our supplements. And this is actually the composition of our supplements. So we, the supplement is called guts and glory.
So, we restore the intestinal epithelial cells with amino acids, vitamins, and important minerals. Then we strengthen the gut barrier and we promote the immune function in the guts. Then we also have 5 strains of probiotics and sacroya revice to enrich the microbiome.
And then to also feed this microbiome, we have digestive enzymes and prebiotics. This is a visual example that I wanted to share because it's sometimes easy to explain it to clients like this. So this is a couple that's In Brazil, went to a field where there was nothing left.
So the, the flora and fauna was completely, destroyed. And what they did is just they replanted certain key, trees. And after a while, they saw that with only with this, with this important trees, all the flora and fauna started to come back.
And the idea behind this is that The ecosystem is huge, so you can't really restore every little aspect of it. But the most important thing is that if you have the key elements and these are strong, then the ecosystem will restore itself in the long run. So what are the nutrients and nutraceuticals that you can use to to restore the intestinal epithelial cells?
So amino acids are really important. So 20% are used, for example, for mucosal protein synthesis, so the mucus in the guts is very rich in proteins. Amino acids also stimulate growth and proliferation.
A glitamine, that's one that's often used in, in falls also. So that one is also really important for the barrier function. Then you also have a lot of nutrients and traceuticals, for maintaining a strong causal barrier to, so to really strengthendi junctions.
And when you actually want to, strengthen the barrier, there are two things that we want to do. So we wanna reduce inflammation and because the inflammatory markers, sorry, the inflammatory mediators, they will actually harm the, mucosa barrier. And then on the other hand, we also want to strengthen the, the di junctions.
So those are two. Things that you need to do when you want to strengthen the, the, the gut barrier. And for that, you can use Lytea.
That's a precursor of a very important antioxidant, gluttaion. You can also use glutathion directly. Zinc is very important for the immune system.
It's a very important core factor in a lot of different pathways in the immunity. MSM is, has an anti-inflammatory. Effects and then selenium.
For the strong dijunctions, again, the amino acids are quite important because also the dijunctions are built from proteins. Then the probiotics. So probiotics are life microorganisms that have a beneficial effect on the host.
And if we combine pre and probiotics, we call it symbiotics. So what is now the effect on of probiotics on gut health in horses. So in horses, the results are mixed, so these are the studies that are already done, and we can see that some studies show a positive effect, some no effect, and some negative effects.
The difficulty with these studies is that, it's very hard to Assess the Action of one strain separately. So this is really a pharma approach, but because it's an ecosystem, it's very hard to, to do it like that. And that's also what you see, the study that shows a negative effect.
What they actually did was they, Give falls a very high dosage of one specific strain of probiotics. But this, this strain, produces a lot of lactates. And of course, if you give that in a very high dosage, then suddenly the pH switch, switches in the intestine, and of course you have the opposite effect.
So all these falls develop diarrhoea. And that's why I think, yeah, these studies, you should, interpret them a bit with caution because it's, it's very hard to Isolate one strain and give it in a very high dosage. That's actually not how the ecosystem works.
So, there is definitely an opportunity in horses to do more research around duration of treatment, the dosage of the strains, and also the combination of the strains. We can also see in horses, there was also a study done that's giving probiotics in the nutrition, enhances performance because it reduces the production of lactic acids. And that is because the probiotics in the gut, they will produce short chain fatty acids, and these are actually one of the most important fuel sources for horses.
So if the gut microbiome is healthy, then the microbes produce. Short chain fatty acids and that actually helps the energy of the horse and that's why there is less lactic acids. When we then look at the functions of the probiotics, we can see that they actually exert their function on two levels.
So they work on the, in the lumen itself, and there they will produce antimicrobial products. They will inactivate bacterial toxins. They will compete with other pathogens for nutrients, and they will compete for adhesion sites.
But the probiotics also interact with the intestinal cells, and, like that, they also influence the immune system in the intestines. So they They will both work on the specific defence and the non-specific defence. So that's also really an important function of probiotics that they influence this immune system in the intestines.
Then studies done in humans also showed that a combination of synergetic, synergetic strains were better than individual strains, and it's also important, . Because that also shows that the the studies that were previously done in horses that maybe they, they didn't choose the right combination. And what's also important is that when you make a combination of, strains, that all the strains have a specific, action, a way of working, like you see in the image, they work on all kind of different regulators and, and pathways.
And that's why if you choose a combination, it's important that you have a variety of actions and that they don't all work on the same aspects. So the strains that we use in the probiotics are all the ones here on the right side. So Lactobacillus paracaa, Lactoba Lactobacillus casa, Lactobacillus rhapnosis, revis, and then Enterococcus vicalis.
So some of them will work on inflammatory mediators, others will work on the pH. Other, other ones will produce a biofilm. Some of the strains are I can survive in the stomach, some, some gums.
The last one here, this one will produce vitamin B12, so you see that they all have a very diverse way of working. And then you also have the prebiotics and the nutrients and nutraceuticals that will feed the microbes. So prebiotic is a non-digestible food ingredient which through selective fermentation facilitates certain changes in the composition and or activity of the gastrointestinal microbiota and thereby boosts the health and well-being of the host.
So what happens is the The microbes will ferment the prebiotics, and because of that, there will be a production of short chain fatty acids and lactates, and that will then again influence the lumen pH. And that has local health benefits such as, for example, an antibacterial effects. Another, nutrients that's, that's quite interesting, I that's, it's a very recent study, .
And it shows actually that curcua, so turmeric, it's quite hot right now. And it shows that the curcumina, it doesn't even have to be absorbed to have an effect because it actually interacts with the gut microbiota. So you can see in the study that it's that curcumia promotes the beneficial bacterial strains that it improves the intestinal barrier.
And that it also counteracts the expression of pro-inflammatory mediators. And also the other way around, the gut microbiome, again, also works as an antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-tumoral, and neuroprotective. So I, by just digesting actually the curcumine.
So that's really interesting because there is also always a lot done about a about a lot said about how good the absorptions of curcumina, but actually this study shows that even without absorption in the body, it already has a positive effect. So I will just quickly summarise and also how we approach development of our supplements guts and glory. So it supports the digestive system and optimises the gut flora.
And as I said, so it will first of all, keep the intestinal cells healthy and promote a healthy mucosa. It will strengthen the gut barrier and support immune function. It enriches the gut microbiome by providing 5 active strains and also sacroyuserrevici, and it provides fuel and energy by, containing prebiotics and digestive enzymes.
So how can you use the goods and glory? Yeah, for all kind of sensitive gastrointestinal systems, so diarrhoea, a change in the diets, sensitive stomach even, when I during periods when the horse is more sensitive, for example, when you transition them from the stabling to the grazing season. You can also give it during and after a course of antibiotics.
You can give it during periods of stress and transport. You can do it for allergies and immune related conditions and during gestation to boost in the microbiome of the mare, and then hopefully that's a whole can start with a healthy microbiome too. So you just give one scoop a day for at least, yeah, 1 to 3 months and the last month you give it at half a dosage.
. This is the, what's in the products. So most of the nutrients I already touched upon in the presentation. So we have 12 billion strains per daily dose, which is also within the scientific, proven dosage.
And this is just a short comparative overview of some competitors on the markets. I've just chosen some random competitors not to Say that they don't have good products, but just to show the difference in approach. So most competitors on the market, they just provide pro and prebiotics, which is, of course, helpful, but only if already the guts, cells and the barrier is already strengthened.
So that's why we developed a product that has all these four aspects in one. Well, that was it. I hope you enjoyed the webinar and that you learned some new insights into the gut microbiomorphosis.
Thank you very much. Valerie, thank you very much for that. And, thank you for the insights that you have given us, into the gut biomes and how important they are.
It's, it's always interesting to me when you have, the comparison to humans and to animals with how much work has been done in the humans and how we still trying to catch up. But thanks to people like yourself and Kirafit, we are actually getting there. Yes.
Yeah, just to touch up on that one. It's, it's also because it's actually not easy to, to do, tests in horses. We are actually currently looking into setting up a study with, Ghent University.
And yeah, the issue is that the gut microbe, the, the gut of the horse is so huge. So just by having a facial sample, it's, yeah, it doesn't really provide a good, Overview of what's the, the microbiome of the horse is and it's, it's very hard to then compare it before and after. So we are still looking into that, but yeah, there are some practical difficulties that make it harder to do a study in horses compared to humans.
Yeah, absolutely. I can, I can fully understand that. Valerie, I wonder if you want to just flick through right to your last slide, with the con your contact information on it so that, yeah, that's it.
Just so that, people know, how they can get hold of you to, ask any further questions that may arise after tonight or if they're watching the recording and that sort of thing. And And also to maybe get advice from you on, on your product. Fantastic.
I don't have any questions come through from my side. I think, everybody that's logged on and watching, like me was fascinated with what you're saying. And every time I had a question, you seem to answer it in the next, the next slide or the next part you were talking about.
So thank you very much for that. You're welcome. Folks, if you do have any questions, for Valerie, or for Kirafit, their contact details, as you can see, are on the slide.
They are also going to be on the recording. So if you want to get hold them to ask any further questions, they will be available for you to do, to contact. And, otherwise, if you send an email through to Dawn at the webinar vet.com, she will be able to point you in the right direction.
It is my pleasure to thank Kirafit for sponsoring tonight's webinar and also to thank all of you for attending. I do hope that you learned, from this excellent presentation that Valerie did. And by the way, Valerie, your first live webinar was absolutely perfect.
So, you can't use that as an excuse going forward anymore. Thank you. Thanks also to Dawn, my controller in the background for making everything run smoothly.
And, from myself, Bruce Stevenson, it's good night.
