Metabolic Profiling Resource Page

What is Metabolic Profiling?

Blood tests from individual animals are routinely used to diagnose disease problems in dairy cattle. Veterinarians, producers, and nutrition consultants alike seem interested in extracting pertinent information relative to herd nutrition and health status from blood testing. Relationships between nutritional status, metabolic state of the animal, and blood analyte (i.e., collective term for various nutrient and metabolic parameters measured) concentrations have been well documented in experimental research under controlled conditions. Properly applied metabolic profile testing, as defined by appropriate animal selection and sample collection, can potentially provide direct confirmatory evaluation of metabolic health and disease risk or evaluate nutritive status on a herd basis.

A "metabolic profile" is defined as a series of specific analytical tests run in combination and used as a herd-based rather than individual-based, diagnostic aid. Use of metabolic profile is the result of technologic improvements in analytical instrumentation, which can completel multiple analyses in a short time period.