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APF is a highly concentrated water-alcohol extract of four adaptogenic herbs:
- Eleutherococcus senticosus (Siberian Ginseng)
- Rhodiola rosea (Arctic Root, Golden Root, Rose Root)
- Schizandra chinensis (Chinese Magnolia Vine)
- Echinopanax elatus (Asian Devil’s Club)
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Every horse at every stage of life benefits from APF. APF provides a unique class of phyto-nutrients that are unavailable through traditional sources.
APF protects against the negative effects of stress. But it does much more than that. It is nutrition that supports and potentiates the overall health of any animal.
Because stress is a common factor in almost every disease process.
The stress response—called the Stress Triad or the GAS (General Adaptation Syndrome) - has been defined as having three distinct phases. It is important to understand these phases and their impact on the body because it give us a better idea of the pervasive negative effects stress can have. These stages are also useful in assessing the stress response because each stage is distinct and can be readily graded, and the functional changes that take place in them have been well studied.
Stage One: Alarm
It is important for this stage to function normally as it generates a number of critical metabolic responses for any organism. Release of the stress hormones, epinephrine and norepinephrine, and cortisol, occur in this stage.
Stage Two: Resistance
This is the stage where adaptive changes appropriately take place. Increased fitness in the training athlete is a perfect example of an adaptive response to physical stress. However, each individual’s capacity to adapt is limited and completely unique. Overwhelm the individual’s adaptive capacity, and you risk illness or injury. That’s when you enter the final stage—exhaustion.
Stage Three: Exhaustion
This stage is characterized by the observed onset of symptoms including fatigue, suppressed immune response, delayed healing, depression, catabolic muscle loss.
Stress can either be a precipitating or initiating factor in a disease or injury, or it can be as a result of a disease or injury. For example, long-distance transport has been identified as a initiating factor in the development of pneumonia in the horse, while colic surgery might be considered a stress that is caused by (or secondary to) the initial colic. In either case, stress is a significant factor that must be considered in the overall management of the horse in the maintenance or recovery of his health.
Stress can severely impact multiple systems in the body, primarily through the HPA axis and its disruption of the energy cycle. Because APF works directly to diminish this negative impact on energy metabolism and to restore body systems to homeostasis as quickly as possible, the horse’s system is protected and better able to mount an appropriate response to the stressor, regardless of its particular profile.
APF has significant insulin-like effects, helping to stabilize circulating blood glucose levels. In the exercising horse this is valuable because it helps maintain optimal uptake and utilization of energy. In the insulin resistant animal, it can be life-saving. As the APF works to improve the cell’s ability to respond to insulin more effectively and take in glucose more like a normal cell, insulin is lowered and circulating blood glucose is regulated.
In October 2002, the prestigious consumer advocacy publication Horse Journal published “Cushing’s Or Not: Treat Insulin Resistance”. The article was ground-breaking in its identification of this disease and noted, “...we found supplementation with APF can result in significant improvements in blood insulin levels, laminitic symptoms and overall energy and appetite.”
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