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Phytate and phosphorus movements in the digestive tract of horses
Author(s) -
MATSUI T.,
MURAKAMI Y.,
YANO H.,
FUJIKAWA H.,
OSAWA T.,
ASAI Y.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
equine veterinary journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.82
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 2042-3306
pISSN - 0425-1644
DOI - 10.1111/j.2042-3306.1999.tb05274.x
Subject(s) - digestive tract , phosphorus , horse , biology , medicine , chemistry , organic chemistry , paleontology
Summary This experiment was conducted to study phytate degradation and the effect of dietary phytate level on phosphorus absorption in the gastrointestinal tract of horses. Six Thoroughbred horses were fed diets containing low‐phytate diet or high‐phytate diet for 5 days. The diets were supplemented with Cr 2 O 3 as an unabsorbable marker. The horses were killed 3 h after the last feeding and digesta in some segments of the intestine were collected. In both dietary' groups, the daily passage of phytate phosphorus was decreased in the upper small intestine and in the lower large intestine. The daily passage of phytate phosphorus in the lower large intestine did not differ between these groups. Although the passage of total phosphorus increased in the upper small intestine and in the upper large intestine of both groups, its passage decreased in the lower large intestine. These results suggest that phytate phosphorus is degraded in the upper small intestine and in the lower large intestine of both groups. Phosphorus is suggested to be mainly absorbed in the lower large intestine. Therefore, phytate phosphorus is considered to be easily absorbed in horses because the major site of phosphorus is the lower large intestine where most of phytate is already degraded.