title: Use of oral tolerance tests to investigate disaccharide digestion in neonatal foals.
abstract: Oral tolerance tests were performed on 13 neonatal foals to determine their ability to digest disaccharides on d 1, 3 and 5 postpartum. Foals were assigned randomly to treatments consisting of 20% (wt/vol) solutions of either maltose, lactose, or sucrose, dosed at 1 g/kg of BW, or glucose, dosed at .5 g/kg of BW. After a 2-h fast, an initial blood sample was collected via jugular catheter. Foals were administered the appropriate solution orally, and blood was collected every 15 min for 1 h and then every 30 min for 3 h. Plasma glucose increased after dosing with lactose or glucose but not with sucrose. Plasma glucose concentrations increased slightly on d 3 and 5 in foals dosed with maltose. These findings suggest that although lactose is well digested by neonatal foals, maltose is digested only slightly, and sucrose is not digested by d 5. Results of this experiment indicate that maltose and sucrose would not be suitable for inclusion in artificial diets for foals less than 1 wk old. Oral tolerance tests could be useful for determining the ability of premature or sick foals with lactose intolerance to digest alternate carbohydrate sources.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, University of Florida, Gainesville 32611.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Rice
authors.forename: E A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Ott
authors.forename: D K
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Beede
authors.forename: C J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Wilcox
authors.forename: E L
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lieb
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Borum
mesh_terms: D000821:Animal Feed; D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn / Q000502:physiology*; D001786:Blood Glucose / Q000032:analysis; D004063:Digestion; D004187:Disaccharides / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D005951:Glucose Tolerance Test / Q000662:veterinary; D006736:Horses / Q000502:physiology*; D007785:Lactose / Q000378:metabolism; D008297:Male; D008320:Maltose / Q000378:metabolism; D011897:Random Allocation; D013395:Sucrose / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D001786:Blood Glucose; D004187:Disaccharides; D013395:Sucrose; D008320:Maltose; D007785:Lactose