You CAN give back the health you took away from your horse!

EMS or Cushings , is one of the most common frustrating diseases an equestrian faces. What most do not know is that it is usually is a consequence of the situation we put horses in, to be able to make them our sports or recreational companion.

MacaHorsePower can be a valuable help to conquer this disease.

Dr. Marcia Martin, one of the most prestigious holistic veterinarians in South Florida, has written holistic veterinary articles for several national magazines including Animal Wellness, Natural Horse as well as region magazines such as Texas Horse Talk.

Hope for Equine Metabolic Syndrome
Says Dr. Martin, "The one thing that continues to amaze me as I work with Horses is the number of Equine Metabolic Syndrome (EMS) horses that I see. EMS is a well-recognized syndrome whose cause is very poorly understood. In veterinary school, we called these horse cushingnoid or hypothyroid. Their characteristic physical appearance: obesity, cresty necks, and general poor condition made them easy to recognize. I don't think that most are truly suffering from adrenal or thyroid dysfunction. There are far too many horses affected for me to believe that we have an epidemic of adrenal or thyroid disease in our horse population. All of the symptoms can be ascribed to a general hormonal imbalance and all are linked to the pituitary. I came to the conclusion that the pituitary must be the key to this problem when I noticed that horses were failing to adequately respond to thyroid supplementation or pergolyde, the standard medications used to treat these horses. This condition crosses all breeds making genetics less likely to be the culprit. I believe that EMS is such a wide spread problem because our horses are not on sound nutritional footing.

Let’s face it; unless your horse is doing what it was designed to do, roam hundreds of acres constantly eating a wide variety of plant material, our horse is not getting adequate nutrition. The majority of hay fed today is grown on depleted soil, leaving the hay devoid on many essential nutrients. We add to this diet a mix of over processed pellets or sweet feed which is high in simple sugar. Is it any wonder that we have an epidemic of sickly, obese horses? Just watch Morgan Spurlock’s amazing documentary, “Super Size Me”, in which he ate nothing but processed fast food for 30 days and you will see the effects of a high fat, high sugar, over processed diet on the body. Many of the symptoms he developed, exercise intolerance, liver disease, obesity, mimic those of the EMS horse.

The second factor is stress. Our horses for the most part are living a very unnatural lifestyle. They are stalled or on small pastures, alone or in small groups. We ask them to perform athletically, haul them long distances in trailers, expose them to situations they are not suited to handle, etc. All of this adds to stress which affects the adrenal function. Stress leads to cortisol production which in excess signals our body to store fat. Excess cortisol production is associated with Crushing’s disease.

With this in mind, I began to look at natural substances called adaptogens, which are compounds found in nature that allow the body to adapt to stress. They work on the pituitary / adrenal axis balancing the body’s hormones. After much research, I found a substance called Maca that I believe greatly improves the lives of these animals. It is a root vegetable grown in the Peruvian Andes and contains and wide variety of trace minerals, including iodine and zinc. I really love this product, not only because it works so well but because it is cultivated through sustainable harvests by the indigenous population of Peru.

I have fed this product to effectively increase fertility in mares, increase stamina and improve performance in equine athletes as well as benefiting horses suffering from Equine Metabolic disease. Write to Marcia and learn how MacaHorsePower can help you: martin@cvcboca.com.