Glycated Hemoglobin is an Indicator of Blood Glucose Status in Horses: Preliminary Study

Glycated hemoglobin (HbG) concentration is a retrospective measure of mean blood glucose level and is not affected by recent stresses, food ingestion, or exercise. Although HbG has been determined in various wild and domestic animals such as kestrels, mankhor, mouflon, aoudad, deer, goat, sheep, dog, camel, ostrich, and horse, there is no information about diagnostic values of HbG as an indicator of blood glucose status in horses. The purposes of this study were to determine normal value of HbG in Iranian crossbred horses and to investigate its relation to fasting plasma glucose. Blood samples were collected from jugular veins of 193 clinically healthy adult crossbred horses (102 males and 91 females). After separation and washing of red blood cells, hemolysate was prepared and subjected to weak cation exchange chromatography for determination of HbG. Glucose was measured in fasting plasma samples. HbG percent (HbG%) in the studied horses was 3.21 ± 0.56 in males and 3.34 ± 0.72 in females. Fasting plasma glucoses were 81.3 ± 7.6 and 84.2 ± 14.5 mg/dL in males and females, respectively. HbG% and plasma glucose were highly correlated (r = 0.81, P < .01). We concluded that HbG% can be considered as a good indicator of blood glucose status in the horse. Two horses with abnormally higher HbG% were found in this study showing persistent high fasting plasma glucose. We concluded that HbG determination could be a more reliable indicator of basal blood glucose concentrations in horses.