In today’s episode we explore the complicated web of mycotoxins and their compounding effects on cattle health. Together with Dr. Larry Roth, Vice President of Nutrition at Agrarian Solutions, we discuss the multifaceted ways mycotoxins target cows, creating a domino effect of adverse consequences that are often misunderstood.
Discover how multiple mycotoxins employ a unique strategy of attack, yet intersect with others to compound the negative effects on cattle. From disrupting rumen function to hindering nutrient absorption, mycotoxins can trigger a cascade of issues that impact milk production, reproduction, and growth, leading to misdiagnosis and misconceptions.
If you would like to discuss this topic further, contact us.
🎧 Listen now to set your herd up for lifelong success!
Scott Zehr
All right. Welcome everybody to Ruminate This with Agrarian Solutions. I’m your host, Scott Zehr. And, glad to be back for episode number six today. And today we’re going to be talking with Dr. Larry Roth, Vice President of Nutrition here at Agrarian Solutions. Once again, Larry, thanks for jumping on with us.
And, we’re going to dive into, our sampling program, our Michael, Michael file testing program. Talk a little bit about what mycotoxins we’re sampling for, and then go through with, some detail with Dr. Roth on kind of the unique characteristics of each one. Larry, is it fair to say that each one of these toxins has its own mode of action and also unique things that they do to challenge that cow?
Dr. Larry Roth
Each of them is a little bit different, but they share a lot of things in common.
Scott Zehr
Yes, they do. One of the things that I want to dive into with you too, Larry is, you know, so there’s cause and effect of, of different toxins, right? And there’s some maybe things that, a toxin like zearalenone will affect directly. But there’s also things I’ll use, Don or vomitoxin, for example, It may affect some of those same things as zearalenone, but more in an indirect manner.
And we’re going to dive into some of those nuances today, with Dr. Roth here on Ruminate This. So if you’re enjoying the podcast so far, make sure you hit that subscribe button. Share this with people that you think would find value in these, these podcast calls. If you’re in the dairy industry, the beef industry, nutritionist, veterinary, herd manager, herd owner, cattle rancher, this is the place for you.
Larry, I’m going to start out with our sampling program. Just to kind of give an overview. There’s 17 different toxins we’re sampling for, correct?
Dr. Larry Roth
Correct. Right.
Scott Zehr
So how did we come up with those 17 that we want to routinely test for?
Dr. Larry Roth
Well, because that’s what labs are commonly set up to test for. Different folks will say there’s somewhere around a thousand different mycotoxins that cause issues, but we commonly see there’s a big five.
And so that’s what labs are testing for. And then there’s some more that we might say are in that second level. So that’s, ironically enough, what labs are set up to test for.
Scott Zehr
So, Larry, what exactly is a mycotoxin? Just to kind of set the table for us.
Dr. Larry Roth
Okay, great question. A mycotoxin is a poison. How’s that?
So the molds, there’s different molds that will produce mycotoxins. And all they’re trying to do is keep other microorganisms from living in their environment, living in their neighborhood. These molds that produce mycotoxins, these poisons could care less about a cow or a steer. They could care less.
Our animals are just collateral damage. So when the mold is on a corn plant, for example, and it gets stressed because it’s too hot and dry or it’s cool and wet, it says, “Hey, I got to survive. I got to have another generation. So I’m going to make a poison that keeps other molds and in certain situations, bacteria from living in this environment.”
So it’s fancy term competitive exclusion. Scott, I just like to say “don’t live in my neighborhood. And if you come here, I’m going to poison you.” That that’s what the molds are doing.
Scott Zehr
They remind me to never to move to Minnesota. So essentially a mycotoxin is that natural defense mechanism for that mold too.
Okay. You know, with that, there’s different types of molds, right? They produce different types of toxins. But there’s certain molds that maybe, I’m going to say like, Fusarium seems to be a lot of different toxins that are produced from Fusarium. And then you have the penicillium molds, which can create toxins that cause issues that we know about in cattle.
But, you mentioned the big five and I think everybody listening to this is probably heard at least they know some of these toxins. But we’re going to go back Larry. There’s a saying that I’ve heard you use before. If I were to ask you in 1992, Norma mycotoxin.
Dr. Larry Roth
Aflatoxin.
Scott Zehr
So tell us about aflatoxin.
Dr. Larry Roth
Yeah, aflatoxin. So we, we associated aflatoxin with drought conditions. It’s hot and it’s dry. And for a long time, that was kind of conditions we had in certain parts of the United States, most notably in the Southeast. We would grow corn, for example, and we’d start out with a good growing season, but then it would get hot and it would quit raining.
So, the, ethereum mold, which generally produces aflatoxin, would get stressed and it would make the aflatoxin. But we also know that there’s some penicillium molds that will also produce aflatoxin. So there’s so many different molds and what we’re going to be doing today, Scott, is mentioning some of these mold names and we’re doing their genus.
And then there’s also different species. What’s interesting about aflatoxin is…
Scott Zehr
It’s a carcinogen, right?
Dr. Larry Roth
Yeah, it’s, it’s a carcinogen. So the aflatoxin is produced on the plant. We’ll use corn as an example, because in the United States, at least most of our mycotoxins are found, corn grain or corn silage. So we’ve got the plant that is stressed, the aflatoxin is on, is there, and we feed that corn grain.
Primarily, aflatoxin was showing up in pigs and chickens because that’s what it was being fed to in the southeast U.S. But the aflatoxin could be absorbed by humans that consume either, the animal products that came from an animal that obviously consumed the aflatoxin or from milk, a cow that, had consumed the aflatoxin and then it would be get converted when it’s into the human. And with cows, they would consume aflatoxin B for, trivia for you, and it’s converted over to aflatoxin M and that’s the carcinogen.
And we don’t like to be creating cancer. So FDA limits aflatoxin levels in feedstuffs as well as in the milk. So that was our big concern for a long time. Aflatoxin carcinogen, has very negative effects on liver and yeah, we had drought conditions. But fortunately our plant breeder friends are now making more drought tolerant corn and we don’t see as much aflatoxin.
A possible exception could be with peanuts and cotton. Again, coming from the southeast. But lately we’ve been using so many different fungicides on peanuts and cotton that even in drought conditions, we don’t see as much aflatoxin. So where would we see it? Let’s say we got somebody who’s sourcing peanut meal or whole cottonseed out of the southeast or a drought prone area.
They might be wanting to see some aflatoxin, but, boy, I’ll tell you what, I just don’t see aflatoxin these days.
Scott Zehr
Yeah, we don’t run into it.
Dr. Larry Roth
Yeah.
Scott Zehr
And so, aflatoxin is if I understand all my, research I’ve done on these things, if you were to ask a nutritionist, you know, name a, or what kind of a product would you use to take care of mycotoxins, many of them would say binders.
So there’s actually some correlation to the story behind L form bacteria, our mode of action, and why we like to say, “Hey, we actually, we’re not a binder, but we work in the mycotoxin arena. But there’s a correlation between when we had all these aflatoxin concerns and actually binders are a pretty good option for aflatoxin. Correct?
Dr. Larry Roth
Oh, just about anything is a good binder for aflatoxin because of its chemical structure and so forth. Anything that we dig out of the ground, slays, yeast cell walls, active charcoal, all of these things will bind aflatoxin. So that’s where people got the idea, “if we have mycotoxins,” put that in air quotes, you got, a binder to protect ourselves.
But unfortunately with changes in our climate, we’re seeing more cool wet conditions. So now our focus is on other types of mycotoxins. We need different protection methods than a simple binder as if our concern was aflatoxin.
Scott Zehr
Right. And which is a good segue to lead into some of these other toxins, these Fusarium mold toxins that we’re kind of going to dive into initially and, you know, the one I’m going to go to next, Larry, to talk about is, is one we see, I would say more than anything, which is D O N, D.O.N or vomitoxin as it’s called.
And unlike aflatoxin, which has a strong, you know, positive molecular charge, DON not so much. And that’s where we kind of see where, you know, the binder approach starts to really wear off, and its ability to bind up these, these toxins. So, you know, data is one we get to talk about a lot on farm.
We get to talk with nutritionists, with veterinarians all over the country. And, it’s probably I, I think from a, from a, you know, concern level perspective, Larry, I’m going to say it’s the most controversial.
So, you know, at what level of DON is causing issues, right? And that’s where I, you know, kind of think of it that way. So tell us a little bit about DON and and then let’s dive into maybe what are some of the side effects, if you would.
Dr. Larry Roth
You bet. So we associate DON with fusarium molds and they get stressed because it’s cool and wet. We have a delayed harvest situation, or it can be nice and warm, but still it’s very wet.
And, you know, a lot of these molds like to live in organic matter. And with modern farming practices, we have more organic matter, especially on the surface. And molds need oxygen to live. So, wow, modern farming practices created almost an ideal environment for fusarium and minusphalium type molds. So, DON, scientific word for you, messes up ruminal fermentation.
Again, we go back to toxins are poisons to try and keep other organisms from growing. And DON tends to reduce our good starch fermenters and fiber fermenters in the rumen. So consequently we have nutrients that flow down the river of the digestive tract and get absorbed, get metabolized by other organisms.
Pathogenic organisms, and we get hindgut fermentation and bad things happen. DON can also kill, I’ll go ahead and say kill because it’s a poison. Cause some cell death in the small intestine. We think of the small intestine lining as being like the castle wall to keep the bad guys, the barbarians in the digestive tract and out of the body.
So DON messes up ruminal fermentation, goes on down to the small intestine causes a break in the castle wall. And now we got DON floating around the body and the animal’s immune system has to go and defeat this poison so that it doesn’t cause bad things in the animal.
Scott Zehr
So when we’re, you know, when we’re on, on farms that are dealing with DON, you know, and you, you just said it right, that hindgut fermentation, to pay homage to one of our former colleagues, I think we would think of that as acidosis.
You know, we’d, we’d see loose manure. Maybe it’s misdiagnosed as acidosis. Maybe it’s DON induced acidosis and, and so, along with that though, what are, if we’re having high DON levels in our TMR and our feedstuffs, beyond that hindgut fermentation or rumen efficiency, what are some other things that might be attributed to, maybe chronic exposure to, to DON?
Dr. Larry Roth
You bet. So first thing that we might start to think about is we’re losing nutrients that could go to more productive purposes like making milk. So we have lower milk levels. That’s because we got DON and the body is trying to deal with DON. So the immune system, the body’s military is trying to defeat it.
Plus we weren’t getting the fermentation that we wanted in the rumen. So milk will suffer in terms of quantity and also in terms of components. Second thing that, we can often see is poor reproduction. So often we associate poor reproduction with zearalenone, which we’ll probably talk about, after a while here, but the, the body, the animal’s body is just set up that first priority is stay alive.
Scott Zehr
Yep.
Dr. Larry Roth
So immune system comes into play. Then it starts thinking about growing with the first lactation cow. So maybe we have poor growth once the animal freshens, first lactation. And then we start to see poor milk quantity and components. Then lastly comes reproduction.
Well, why would reproduction suffer? Well, again, what’s standing last in line for nutrients, reproduction, and most notably glucose. Where’s glucose get produced? Well, the liver has a big role in detoxifying mycotoxins. So if we’re causing issues for liver health, because we have, I’m not gonna say high levels, but significant levels of mycotoxins, including DON to get rid of. Now the liver is impaired for making glucose. So we go down our biochemistry route here.
Glucose is used for making lactose, lactose levels are closely regulated in milk by the body. So no, no glucose, no lactose, no milk. Glucose is also important as a carbon source for rapidly developing follicles. So if we see poor first service conception rates, well, maybe that’s because we’re not getting the follicle development, follicle health that we want because we’re not getting glucose produced.
Because we have poor rumen health. We didn’t get the fermentation we wanted. We didn’t get glucose produced by the liver because we had issues there. And we also have glucose going over as a fuel for the body’s military, the immune system, and consequently standing last in line are the follicles saying, “Hey, where’s my glucose so that I can grow.”
Scott Zehr
Yeah.
Dr. Larry Roth
So it’s all kind of a cascade, if you want to think of it that way, of what’s going on. Cell death, mycotoxins get into the body, immune system has to go defeat them, that’s a diversion of nutrients. Mycotoxins go to the liver, cause issues there, we don’t get nutrients, not only glucose produced but also amino acids, and consequently things suffer.
And right there, Scott, that little sequence of events applies to all of the mycotoxins to one degree or another.
Scott Zehr
It does. And, you know, like I mentioned in the beginning, right, there’s things that we think about with each one of these toxins as, a direct, because of their mode of action, you know, the direct challenge that it presents, but also this, this chain of events.
I mean, it’s not hard to follow, you know, what you just said and connect the dots because it’s just the way, the way it is, right? We don’t really think of DON, which is that room and efficiency killer, if you would, as causing elevated somatic cell.
But if that immune system is working overtime to fight off the negative effects of DON, because of that cell death and it’s, she’s not absorbing the amount of nutrients she should because of that hindgut fermentation and inflammation in there and cell death. Well, that makes a lot of sense. So you made reference to Zearalenone. Larry, I know, you, you might want to have a little fun with me and, and try to stump me on something.
I’m going to tell you to pick a different one because Zearalenone is one that having spent a number of years, on the back end of the cow, if you would, I paid a lot of attention to this one. It started out because I was breeding cows on a dairy that we were seeing an awful lot of cows in the dry cow pen and in the pregnant cow pen that were jumping and standing like they were in heat.
So, you know, the cow gets put on vet check and then the vet says, why am I arming cows that are pregnant? Well, we just saw her standing in heat. Little did I know at the time, but zearalenone has a very similar, chemical makeup as does estrogen. And am I right in saying that when they, when the cow consumes it, her body actually recognizes it as estrogen?
Dr. Larry Roth
Exactly. It binds to the estrogen receptors, and then we get the poor reproductive success, short cycles, all of those bad things start to happen. But also, zearalenone can cause death to some of the intestinal cells, and we just went through that sequence of events. So, again, if we go back 30, 40 years ago, people would have said aflatoxin and then zearalenone and associate it with poor reproductive success because of its estrogen like properties.
But we know it also comes into play, from diverting nutrients. What’s interesting is so often we see DON and zearalenone traveling along hand in hand together.
Scott Zehr
Yep.
Dr. Larry Roth
So why do we, when would we have DON? When we see loose manure again, the hind gut fermentation. when would we see zearalenone? When reproductive success really suffers.
And again, so they’re, they’re so related together. And you were talking about levels, making a reference to that earlier. Well, we can say a certain level of DON is going to cause issues. Well, what happens if zearalenone is there also? What happens if some of the other mycotoxin levels are present? Well, then the level of DON to cause issues dropped.
And, you know, there’s a whole long list of, things like cystic cows that get associated with zearalenone and so forth. But so often that is when we have high levels. I think the big problem with these mycotoxins is not the high levels, it’s the medium levels to we’re kind of borderline high and causing again, the intestinal death, liver problems, immune issues, and diversion of nutrients.
Scott Zehr
I think you’re right about that. I think it’s less and less am I of the belief that, not saying we haven’t seen it. I think you and I could identify a farm a year ago that we were on that they were struggling with some acute toxin problems. Where they got into a bunk that was just extremely high in DON very high in zearalenone.
But to me, I think it’s the, it’s the chronic long term low level where, you know, it’s, and if you’re a dairyman listening to this, I like to ask the question, well, when’s the last time you really felt like the herd was performing the way it should genetically speaking and nutritionally speaking? Oftentimes, you know, you’ll hear things like, well, you know, five, six months ago, we were making two, three pounds more milk.
Well, okay. So, maybe that’s 93 pounds of milk. Well, do you feel like you should have been making 98? A hundred? Where do you think your genetic potential is? And, Larry, I’m not sure we know what these cows are truly capable of, you know? Because I don’t, I don’t think we’ve really figured out a lot of these toxins and how they interact.
Dr. Larry Roth
So, I think that what you just said is important, how they interact? Because again, rarely do, is it just one that shows up because it’s similar molds. So many of them are fusarium, many of them are penicillium. It’s similar conditions that cause the mold to produce the poison, and it’s similar ones. So you were just mentioning some numbers for milk production.
Scott, let’s simplify it. We think we should be out 100 pounds of milk. Well, if we’re having cell death in the intestine, we’re having liver issues, we’re having nutrients diverted over to support the immune system. For the sake of argument, we’re losing 2 percent of our nutrients right there. They’re diverted away to non-productive purposes.
I mean, we can argue that the immune system is productive, but really what we’re measuring is what’s milk production, what’s reproductive success. That’s what we’re measuring. So if we have 2 percent of our nutrients being diverted, gosh, that’s two pounds out of a hundred pounds that we ought to be getting.
It doesn’t seem like a lot…
Scott Zehr
Right.
Dr. Larry Roth
But, hey, I’d like everybody to give me 2 percent of their paycheck because they’re not going to miss it. Right. We have a row crop farmer and he was hauling corn or soybeans to town and he didn’t close the bottom of that truck like he ought to, and he lost 2 percent of his soybeans going to town.
Do you think he would close that, that door the next time? I think so. So it’s not the big issues, the big levels that we need to be concerned about. It’s these medium to kind of borderline high levels that maybe they’re costing us two to 5%.
Scott Zehr
Yep.
Dr. Larry Roth
Hey, if the guy who’s mixing the TMR forgot to close the gate on the TMR wagon and we lost two to 5% of our TMR between mixing and getting it out in front of the cows.
Would the dairy owner be concerned about that? I think so.
Scott Zehr
I think so.
Dr. Larry Roth
But these mycotoxins are causing a loss of two to 5 percent of the nutrients that could be going into the cows. One of the mycotoxins that we’re starting to see a little bit of now is T2. And T2 has a very interesting history.
Scott Zehr
Yes, it does.
Dr. Larry Roth
T2 was a big problem during World War II and a period afterwards, grains, small grains weren’t being harvested in Russia like they should have. Uncle Joe Stalin realized that it was an issue. Put some microbiologists to work to come up with defenses against T2 because it was estimated that somewhere around 10 percent of the people in Belarus and Ukraine died from T2 poisoning.
Wow, that’s huge. And Scott, I won’t be interesting subject for another one of these podcasts, but it was T2 that led to the discovery of the L form bacteria that we’re now working with.
Scott Zehr
Yeah.
Dr. Larry Roth
T2 suppresses the immune system. And if it’s, we’re suppressing the immune system of our cows, that’s letting pathogens, be it respiratory or digestive wise, have their, their way.
T2 also, causes liver failure. And again, liver is the biochemical factory of the body, get rid of, bad things and create good things. So yeah, T2, we’re starting to see a little bit more of that. And again, I’m not trying to say we don’t do good modern agronomic practices, but anytime we get more organic residue, we’re setting ourselves up for things like T2.
Scott Zehr
Well, with T2 as well, I think of intestinal hemorrhaging. I think of that bloody diarrhea. Larry, I, this is a, you know, just a hypothesis of mine. How many misdiagnosed cases of hemorrhagic bowel have there been?
Dr. Larry Roth
Oh, absolutely. You know, we, we used to say it was what was it? Aspergillus fumigatus. It was from a hay that was stored on the ground.
Then we say it’s clostridia. Now we’re understanding that maybe bloody gut is just a sign of symptoms that can cause from any number of different things.
Scott Zehr
Right.
Dr. Larry Roth
We know that these poisons, mycotoxins cause shifts and digester tract bacteria.
Scott Zehr
Yep
Dr. Larry Roth
Fewer of the bacteria that produce lactic acid to keep pH down.
So now we have a shift. Toward those organisms that like to eat the mycotoxins make sense. More mycotoxins more of the bacteria that like to eat them and they’re not the guys that produce the lactic acid so we get more pathogens and then we get the bloody gut that you were just mentioning so it’s, rarely is it just one mycotoxin. Rarely is it just one issue. It’s a whole bunch of things that come together.
Scott Zehr
Yeah.
Dr. Larry Roth
Another interesting mycotoxin is fumanicin. In the United States of America, there’s two, only two mycotoxins that are regulated. Nationally, it’s aflatoxin because, as we mentioned earlier, it’s a carcinogen. The other one is fumanicin in the state of Texas.
Not so much for cattle, but rather for horses because of what it does for our GI tract health. So we impaired digestive tract health, we get colic and what’s the big thing that all horse owners are concerned about? Colic.
Scott Zehr
Yeah.
Dr. Larry Roth
So little trivia for you. But Pumatazin also causes liver issues with cattle.
And again, man, I sound like I keep repeating myself, liver, that’s the body’s biochemical factory. So, interesting how many of these mycotoxins are going to affect the body in the same way. They’re created by the same molds. It’s just what are the conditions, and when do the conditions occur in the field or during storage where we get bad things happening?
Scott Zehr
Wow, there’s, there’s a lot to digest. And we have a couple more that I want to bring to your mind, before we start to wrap it up. But yeah, let’s go. Actually, I’ll, I’ll go right there. Mycophenolic acid. We see that pop up not extremely consistently, but enough that, you know, we’re, we’re keeping track of it. Talk to us about mycophenolic acid.
Dr. Larry Roth
Yeah, mycophenolic acid produced by penicillium. And some of your listeners, their ears may have perked up when they heard mycophenolic acid because we hear of it a lot in human medicine. It’s administered to people who have organ transplants because it suppresses the immune system.
Scott Zehr
Anti-rejection.
Dr. Larry Roth
Yeah, what could go wrong with a cow that has a suppressed immune system?
Scott Zehr
An awful lot.
Dr. Larry Roth
Or a heifer that has a suppressed immune system. But again, in certain conditions, cool back the penicillin besides, hey, I’m going to make this poison, like a phenolic acid because I don’t want bacteria growing in my neighborhood and the cow is the collateral damage.
Scott Zehr
Yep. Okay. Another one I’m going to throw at you, Larry, that is now on our, assay results we get back. And I, I’m seeing more and more of it. And I know that we know we didn’t really get into this and we won’t have to dive in, but we, we think of DON is an indicator toxin in a lot of ways, a marker toxin.
And one that’s popping up more frequently than even mycophenolic acid is Roquefortine C.
Dr. Larry Roth
Roquefortine C, that’s a very interesting one. Again, if we were having this conversation 20 years ago, we wouldn’t even be mentioning that name. And, I may mention, you know, about storage a little bit ago. And so often we think mycotoxins come when we have bad storage.
We did fix the green bed roof and now we got leaking. Actually Roquefortine C can come in some of our very best silages because the penicillium that makes Roquefortine C is anaerobic. It’ll grow when we don’t have oxygen. Oh yeah. Most all of our other molds, they need some oxygen. So, man, you, Scott, you’ve got somebody who’s doing an excellent, excellent job with their corn silage.
They had some penicillium that came in with it. And man, they, they did a good job of packing, but our cows are having some issues. Lower production and what they are to, you know, some reproductive failure. Well, we need to look at Roquefortine C because it shows up at some of our very best corn silages. We do everything right.
And it gets created while the crop is in the, in the, in the bunker. So a very interesting one. And again, Roquefortine C in certain levels is okay. If you’ve had rope type cheese or dressing or blue cheese, you probably had some Roquefortine C.
Scott Zehr
I love blue cheese, especially on my buffalo wings.
Dr. Larry Roth
So you probably had some Roquefortine C, but it was at a low enough level that it didn’t make you sick.
Scott Zehr
I’m still here.
Dr. Larry Roth
Or if you did get sick, wow, too much Roquefortine C.
Scott Zehr
You know, maybe I just blamed it on the hot chicken wings that I ate, and it was really the Roquefortine C.
Dr. Larry Roth
Could be.
Scott Zehr
The last one I want to dive into, and then I, I have a, I’m going to say a trivia question for you, Larry.
Dr. Larry Roth
Okay.
Scott Zehr
Patulin. What’s the I, this, this, you and I had a discussion about patulin not that long ago. More common in, in maybe some livestock ingredients, like apple pomace.
Dr. Larry Roth
Yeah, yeah. Patulin is very interesting. Again, it’s a penicillium. Tends to be more associated with fruit than with grain crops. Patulin and here’s the interesting thing about patulin and if we have apples to start to spoil, okay, what are we going to do with them?
We’re not going to send them to the grocery store for table consumption. We’re going to turn them into cider.
Scott Zehr
Yes.
Dr. Larry Roth
What could go wrong with that? Well, we got the apple pomace. We got the cider. Patulin is a mycotoxin that is not the, not changed by pasteurization. So we go to the store, we get some apple cider that is clear because it’s been pasteurized.
If it came from bad apples, there might be some patulin on there. But…
Scott Zehr
Interesting.
Dr. Larry Roth
Hey, we got a great bargain. We got some apple pomace that we can go by. Okay. Hey, it’s going to be a good source of some carbohydrates, some sugars, maybe a little bit of soluble fiber. Maybe we want to evaluate it for paulin. Again, liver, causes problems for the liver.
Scott Zehr
So…
Dr. Larry Roth
And now I just tanked apple cider consumption in the United States.
Scott Zehr
Well, now I was going to ask you, cause I was thinking about where we get our apple cider from an orchard, not far from here. They don’t pasteurize it, but they UV treat it.
Dr. Larry Roth
That UV is going to be effective for the organisms like bacteria, molds.
Scott Zehr
Right. Probably not for Patulin.
Dr. Larry Roth
It’s not going to change the poison, Patulin.
Scott Zehr
Well, there we go. Larry, I have a a trivia question for you. And this is, this is one that over the course of my career, over the last 11 years, I’ve been told that this is unequivocally true. And I’ve also been told that that is nothing more than witchcraft and you’re crazy. And there’s no, no such thing.
Do cattle have the ability to store mycotoxins within their body or do toxins have the ability to, you know, become stored within the body? And is it all toxins or just certain toxins?
Dr. Larry Roth
Wow. That’s a, that’s a fantastic trivia question. And the answer is yes.
Animals have the ability to store principally Zearalanone…
Scott Zehr
Interesting.
Dr. Larry Roth
…in their, in their fat tissue. So again, what could go wrong with that? So we’ve got a, let’s say a dairy heifer that’s been on some corn silage, maybe some distiller’s grains. And again, what’s distiller’s grains made from? I’m going to say mycotoxin contaminated corn because we’re not going to take it to the feed mill because they’re testing for it.
So the heifer is gradually putting on some body condition, right? Well, if it’s been gradually absorbing some of the Zearalanone, depositing that in the fat tissue, the animal freshens, and it starts to break down some of that body fat, and now we have Zearalanone freed from the fatty tissue, and it is floating through the body to cause its mischief in the liver, and again with the estrogen receptors.
So yes, the body does have the ability to absorb mycotoxins. And the one that we’re principally concerned about is zearalenone.
Scott Zehr
There’s another discussion here about liver health, post calving, and all the stuff that that cow has to do, and ask that liver to do, and then. Wow. Wow. There’s a lot of, a lot of stuff to think about there.
So, one final question for you, Larry. if we go back to episode two and episode three, where we talked about our mycotoxin research we did. You know, those samples, when we did those samples during the studies, we saw DON and zearalenone. We didn’t pick up any of the other toxins we talked about. But yeah, when I’m on dairies across the region, I serve here.
Same with our colleague, Chad out in Minnesota. I mean, you see it, we see all of these toxins. With the exception of probably aflatoxin, but we’ve seen them all. But yet we’re able to show improvements despite having T2 or despite having fumonisin. We know binders are effective for aflatoxin.
Why is DTX specifically effective against such a broad range of toxins? And then we’ll wrap up.
Dr. Larry Roth
Ah, great question. So how do mycotoxins get into the body? First of all, they have to get into the intestinal lining cells that are absorbed. Well, these mycotoxins are so big compared to like a glucose molecule.
And we know that a glucose molecule has to be absorbed at the intestine with transport of proteins. Okay. It doesn’t happen by simple diffusion passing through the intestinal wall, the wall of the intestinal cell. So it’s, it’s active transport of proteins that help absorb glucose, amino acids, and vitamins. And guess what, Scott, our mycotoxins are a little bit bigger than those nutrients.
So it’s active transport of proteins that help to absorb these bigger molecules like the mycotoxins. That’s the only way they get in. They can’t go in by simple diffusion. And so, if we’re able to trigger, excuse me, let me back up. So, we, we know that it’s transport of proteins to get things in. We also know that these intestinal cells have the ability to get garbage out.
Metabolites and so forth. And these metabolite molecules are not small enough to just go out by simple diffusion, like through a simple membrane. It takes active transport of proteins to get the garbage out. And it’s these active transport of proteins that our L formed bacteria activate that take the mycotoxins out.
Hey, animals, and including humans, as long as we’ve been here on Earth, we’ve been designed with these transport of proteins to clean up our intestinal cells. We’re designed with the ability to protect our castle wall.
Scott Zehr
Right.
Dr. Larry Roth
The question is what’s the level of the mycotoxins that are being absorbed by the intestinal cells and are the transport of proteins active enough to take the garbage out? Take the mycotoxins out. That’s, it’s that simple. Is our L form bacteria that activates the transport of proteins that get the garbage out. It’s that simple. Trans mycotoxins are garbage. We got to get it out. And the, the cells are designed. So it’s really is quite simple. So when somebody questions transport of proteins, I say, okay, cool.
How does the cell get rid of the metabolites that are not supposed to be there? Because otherwise that intestinal cell would be dying, right?
Scott Zehr
Right.
Dr. Larry Roth
Oh, yeah. Yeah. That’s right. They got to have some way to get that out. And yeah, those molecules are too big for simple diffusion. So that’s the transport of proteins.
So it’s logical. Somehow we get these compounds in. Somehow the cells got to get them out. It’s the transport of proteins. We just have to activate those transport of proteins that get the stuff out of the cell. And that’s what we do.
And these transport of proteins, there’s not one for aflatoxin, one for DON, one for zearalenone. These transport of proteins, they take the bad stuff out, can recognize a wide range of molecules. Not just toxins, not just poisons, but other things as well.
Scott Zehr
I think, you know, the way you described that and the way I’ve understood it over the last couple of years as I’ve gotten to know you, to simplify it in my head, it’s like these transport of proteins to them mycotoxins are nameless and faceless. They’re a bad guy. They know they’re a bad guy. They get them out.
They don’t care if it’s DON. They don’t care if it’s zearalenone. They don’t care if it’s T2. And, and so that’s, that’s how I view the broad spectrum coverage that we have versus an aflatoxin, which again is a chemical, you know, chemical reaction, but it’s you’re targeting, a negatively charged ion and they’re trying to bind with a positively charged ion and, and remove that way.
So, you know, to me, that makes perfect sense. And hopefully we were able to clear some of that up, today for our listeners. And, you know, folks, if you’re listening and, and you want to, have more information, sent to you, or would like to speak to myself, Larry, fill out that contact us form at agrariansolutions.com
And it’s probably in the information tab of this podcast episode as well. And we’ll be glad to, help you out in any way we can. Dr. Roth, I, again, appreciate you jumping on with us again today. We might have to change this to the Scott and Larry show if I keep this up.
But yeah, always good visiting with you and thanks for the insights and, yeah, we’ll be chatting again soon.
Dr. Larry Roth
All right. Hey, thanks Scott. Enjoy.
Scott Zehr
Thank you, Larry.
