Vitamin E supplements recommendations

[Hormonal Filly]

Had 2 different replies from Forage Plus in response to the same email.

I’ll post one of the responses here as it says about the carrier being a bigger particle.

 

[lynz88]

I received this explanation from FP in an email comms about a week or 2 ago (time is escaping me lately). I have plenty of vit e atm so had noted it but hadn't looked into it fully.

 

[HBB]

That's very interesting regarding the recent vitamin e shortage as EquiNatural have dropped the vit e completely from their Equivita balancer without advising customers of the change. The lady who runs Equinatural informed my friend that horses do not require vitamin e supplementation as all they need to do is graze growing grass for 30 mins and that will give them it in sufficient amounts, sounds rather reckless to me.

 

[Hormonal Filly]

That's very interesting regarding the recent vitamin e shortage as EquiNatural have dropped the vit e completely from their Equivita balancer without advising customers of the change. The lady who runs Equinatural informed my friend that horses do not require vitamin e supplementation as all they need to do is graze growing grass for 30 mins and that will give them it in sufficient amounts, sounds rather reckless to me.

That’s crazy. According to FP they have to graze decent grass for 12 hours to get 2000-3000 units, mine doesn’t get much grass at all which is why I supplement it’

 

[Exasperated]

I cannot believe this conversation! Nor the brand-partisanship, and refuse to get further involved, but here’s my first and final twopennorth:
Would strongly advise all participants to read Ben Goldacre’s “Bad Science”, and thoroughly.
Vested interest: I have a mare presenting with PSSM 2 ( aka MIM), over many months have sought advice from numerous equine nutritionists and vets, tried a variety of diets / management / supplementation (including Forage Plus, including also from a well-respected company who provided significant quantities of a trial product, gratis, and am most grateful for that, having spent considerable amounts elsewhere) - with ABSOLUTELY NO APPRECIABLE IMPROVEMENT.
All were very ‘helpful’, considerable variation in the professional advice they offered, and probably the take-home message must be ‘if it works for you’....(to whoever it was on here whose horse responded well to the discredited Equimins oil). Trial and error, in stark contrast with established scientific method.
I am not an idiot, and also understand that some 30% of affected horses cannot improve with management, no matter how much money, time, effort and tears one spends.
Retired from lecturing in HE, have also witnessed the mushrooming of colleges, qualifications, degree and even post-graduate courses, many of which are NOT academically rigorous. I believe someone / manufacturer is quoting vitamin E studies applicable to rats and / or humans from 25 and 35 years ago?
Please read ‘Bad Science’, and subsequent updates. Interesting, entertaining and enlightening, a good starting point for genuine critical evaluation by anyone. A pity the author hasn’t turned his attentions to this area - might save a lot of people a lot of false hopes, not to mention money.
Good luck!

 

[lynz88]

That's very interesting regarding the recent vitamin e shortage as EquiNatural have dropped the vit e completely from their Equivita balancer without advising customers of the change. The lady who runs Equinatural informed my friend that horses do not require vitamin e supplementation as all they need to do is graze growing grass for 30 mins and that will give them it in sufficient amounts, sounds rather reckless to me.

I emailed Equi-Natural last year for some guidance on their products after doing thr Equibiome test and was very unimpressed with them. I did order something to give it a try but the person I was in contact with used what I can only describe as scare tactics to get me to buy a bunch of other products. It left a very foul taste in my mouth and won't be considering any of their products further. I'm sure the stories that were shared with me were true regarding the results they had seen but the rest of the pressure selling (sounded like I would kill my horse if I didn't give him x,y,z) was bonkers.

Mine is on grass from about 8am-4/430pm and doesn't get enough vit e. The grass quality isn't particularly great where he is and he is an EPM horse. Combined factors = Vit E supplementation required.

 

[paddy555]

I cannot believe this conversation! Nor the brand-partisanship, and refuse to get further involved, but here’s my first and final twopennorth:
Would strongly advise all participants to read Ben Goldacre’s “Bad Science”, and thoroughly.
Vested interest: I have a mare presenting with PSSM 2 ( aka MIM), over many months have sought advice from numerous equine nutritionists and vets, tried a variety of diets / management / supplementation (including Forage Plus, including also from a well-respected company who provided significant quantities of a trial product, gratis, and am most grateful for that, having spent considerable amounts elsewhere) - with ABSOLUTELY NO APPRECIABLE IMPROVEMENT.
All were very ‘helpful’, considerable variation in the professional advice they offered, and probably the take-home message must be ‘if it works for you’....(to whoever it was on here whose horse responded well to the discredited Equimins oil). Trial and error, in stark contrast with established scientific method.
I am not an idiot, and also understand that some 30% of affected horses cannot improve with management, no matter how much money, time, effort and tears one spends.
Retired from lecturing in HE, have also witnessed the mushrooming of colleges, qualifications, degree and even post-graduate courses, many of which are NOT academically rigorous. I believe someone / manufacturer is quoting vitamin E studies applicable to rats and / or humans from 25 and 35 years ago?
Please read ‘Bad Science’, and subsequent updates. Interesting, entertaining and enlightening, a good starting point for genuine critical evaluation by anyone. A pity the author hasn’t turned his attentions to this area - might save a lot of people a lot of false hopes, not to mention money.
Good luck!

you say you have a horse presenting with PSSM2. How do you know it is PSSM2? do you have a vet diagnosis? if not and you are simply trying to work on the possibility of PSSM2 like many others which I for one would agree is not very scientific. I worked on a similar non scientific basis.

If was me whose horse responded very well to the equimins oil. It did work well for us. It resolved our problem and (vit E) has still resolved it many years later. Yes it was trial and error and there was no established scientific method. I simply started working my way through all possibilities and found a solution.

I am not aware there are vit e studies relating specifically to horses however it is clear from MSU of the importance of it and I believe that many are deficient.

I am not sure what the point of your post is? how did you resolve your horse's PSSM2 if that is your diagnosis?

 

[ycbm]

I cannot believe this conversation! Nor the brand-partisanship, and refuse to get further involved, but here’s my first and final twopennorth:
Would strongly advise all participants to read Ben Goldacre’s “Bad Science”, and thoroughly.
Vested interest: I have a mare presenting with PSSM 2 ( aka MIM), over many months have sought advice from numerous equine nutritionists and vets, tried a variety of diets / management / supplementation (including Forage Plus, including also from a well-respected company who provided significant quantities of a trial product, gratis, and am most grateful for that, having spent considerable amounts elsewhere) - with ABSOLUTELY NO APPRECIABLE IMPROVEMENT.
All were very ‘helpful’, considerable variation in the professional advice they offered, and probably the take-home message must be ‘if it works for you’....(to whoever it was on here whose horse responded well to the discredited Equimins oil). Trial and error, in stark contrast with established scientific method.
I am not an idiot, and also understand that some 30% of affected horses cannot improve with management, no matter how much money, time, effort and tears one spends.
Retired from lecturing in HE, have also witnessed the mushrooming of colleges, qualifications, degree and even post-graduate courses, many of which are NOT academically rigorous. I believe someone / manufacturer is quoting vitamin E studies applicable to rats and / or humans from 25 and 35 years ago?
Please read ‘Bad Science’, and subsequent updates. Interesting, entertaining and enlightening, a good starting point for genuine critical evaluation by anyone. A pity the author hasn’t turned his attentions to this area - might save a lot of people a lot of false hopes, not to mention money.
Good luck!

I don't understand what point you are trying to make. I have not only read Ben's book but I've also seen him present in a 3 hour live show.

The fact is that PSSM and the vitamin E myopathies, of which I now believe there are many, are relatively new knowledge and treatment is still very much trial and error.
.

 

[HBB]

I emailed Equi-Natural last year for some guidance on their products after doing thr Equibiome test and was very unimpressed with them. I did order something to give it a try but the person I was in contact with used what I can only describe as scare tactics to get me to buy a bunch of other products. It left a very foul taste in my mouth and won't be considering any of their products further. I'm sure the stories that were shared with me were true regarding the results they had seen but the rest of the pressure selling (sounded like I would kill my horse if I didn't give him x,y,z) was bonkers.

Mine is on grass from about 8am-4/430pm and doesn't get enough vit e. The grass quality isn't particularly great where he is and he is an EPM horse. Combined factors = Vit E supplementation required.

I used to really rate the Equivita balancer but I gave up on the product when the owner had a meltdown on FB regarding pre and pro-biotics, the "science" she follows is very limited and I got very annoyed when she kept removing key ingredients from her balancer and not informing loyal customers and ridiculing them when they don't agree with her.

 

[lynz88]

How immature!! Given my experience, I am not surprised by this story.

 

[AandK]

That's very interesting regarding the recent vitamin e shortage as EquiNatural have dropped the vit e completely from their Equivita balancer without advising customers of the change. The lady who runs Equinatural informed my friend that horses do not require vitamin e supplementation as all they need to do is graze growing grass for 30 mins and that will give them it in sufficient amounts, sounds rather reckless to me.

It is still listed as an ingredient on the website. I feed EquiVita so would be interested to know how you found out about this?

 

[HBB]

It is still listed as an ingredient on the website. I feed EquiVita so would be interested to know how you found out about this?

It was my friend who messaged her direct and queried why there was no Vitamin E listed on the new bag of EquiVita she had just bought, it was also missing from the listed ingredients on the website shop.

As explained in my other post, the lady said in her message to my friend she doesn’t think we need to supplement Vitamin E as 30 mins of grazing growing grass is sufficient and has also written about it in her recent blog - https://equinatural.co.uk/i/minerals-and-it-s-all-change-for-the-spring-grass

My friend has now returned the bag of EquiVita and the owner of the company has advised she is reversing her decision and putting Vit E back in as apparently she has been inundated with messages from people “fearing” for their horses lives as they’re not getting Vitamin E

I gave up feeding EquiVita when the owner had a meltdown on FB regarding feeding pre and Probiotics, she removed them from her balancers as it went against her “science”.

 

[Tiddlypom]

Just to relate that after feeding 8000iu per day of Forageplus natural vitamin e for many years to my PSSM2 IDx, who needs additional vitamin e supplementation, I recently switched to Progressive Earth natural vitamin e simply because Pro Earth still had it in stock, and FP didn't due to the world wide shortage.

After various HHO puzzlings over the actual iu content in FP nat vit e, to be safe I put her on 4000iu according to PE guidelines, as I didn't want to overdose her. She quickly (48 hours) became grumpy and really hard in her quarter muscles, so I've gradually upped the dose so she is back on 8000iu PE nat vit e. And I have my happy horse back.

So in my limited study of n=1 horses, FP and PE natural vit e have the same effect on my horse at a dosage (as given by the manufacturer) of 8000iu per day, although the carriers and volumes fed may be different.

 

[criso]

So when you switched to the PE, you fed the same amount by volume as you had been previously which according to their calculations would only deliver half the vitamin e per scoop.

So now to get the same level/effect of vitamin e as the fp, you are having to feed twice as much of the PE.

Eta that's going on the previous product as now fp have a slightly different carrier due to supply issues.

 

[Tiddlypom]

Pretty much .

PE natural vit e contains approx 1000 iu per 5 ml blue scoop, so I am now feeding her 20ml of nat vit e powder twice a day. Formerly I was feeding her 10ml twice a day.

I was pretty spooked at the possibility of overdosing her, so started on equal vols and worked up.

I do not have any old style FP natural vit e left to compare the relative volumes of 0.5kg product as sold, though, the densities may be very different.

 

[criso]

Formerly I was feeding her 10ml twice a day.

Of the old FP?

 

[Tiddlypom]

Of the old FP?

Sorry, yes, of the old FP.

I do not have any of the new FP.

 

[paddy555]

Just to relate that after feeding 8000iu per day of Forageplus natural vitamin e for many years to my PSSM2 IDx, who needs additional vitamin e supplementation, I recently switched to Progressive Earth natural vitamin e simply because Pro Earth still had it in stock, and FP didn't due to the world wide shortage.

After various HHO puzzlings over the actual iu content in FP nat vit e, to be safe I put her on 4000iu according to PE guidelines, as I didn't want to overdose her. She quickly (48 hours) became grumpy and really hard in her quarter muscles, so I've gradually upped the dose so she is back on 8000iu PE nat vit e. And I have my happy horse back.

So in my limited study of n=1 horses, FP and PE natural vit e have the same effect on my horse at a dosage (as given by the manufacturer) of 8000iu per day, although the carriers and volumes fed may be different.

is this the same horse you fed oily herbs to and found improvement/they were needed?

 

[Tiddlypom]

is this the same horse you fed oily herbs to and found improvement/they were needed?

No, another one, though all 3 are now permanently on daily oily/hedgerow herbs .

It was another mare who had the Equibiome analysis done on her.

 

[paddy555]

No, another one, though all 3 are now permanently on daily oily/hedgerow herbs .

It was another mare who had the Equibiome analysis done on her.

thanks