Ep. 115: What Horse Owners Should Know About “Research-Backed” Products

Episode Notes

What does “research -backed” actually mean in the horse industry and how much of what we hear is really science versus really good marketing?

On this episode of Beyond the Barn, host Katy Starr chats with Dr. Brian Nielsen, professor of equine exercise physiology at Michigan State University, and Dr. Kelly Vineyard, PhD equine nutritionist to discuss scientific literacy and how to tell if something is truly backed by good research or when it just sounds convincing, including:

• Why some of the most believable horse product claims may not actually prove anything
• Red flags that make researchers immediately skeptical
• What horse owners should look for before spending money on feed products or supplements

Plus, Dr. Nielsen shares hilarious stories from the racehorse world, the truth about placebo affects in horses and humans, and one “treatment” he swears has helped horses win races for years! By the end of this episode, you may never look at the phrase “research-backed” the same way again.

🎧 Listen now on the Beyond the Barn podcast

Have a topic idea or feedback to share? We want to connect with you! Email podcast@standlee.com

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Check out our other Beyond the Barn episodes to learn more – 

• Ep. 114: 5 Things Horse Owners Misunderstand About Feed Tags
• Ep. 106: 5 Ways Horse Owners Waste Money on Feeding
• Ep. 103: How to Balance Forage-Based or Grain-Free Diets & Bust Common Myths – Part 2
• Ep. 102: Horse Feeding Trends Explained: Forage-Based, Grain-Free & Everything in Between – Part 1
• Ep. 050: Top 10 Most Common Feeding Mistakes Horse Owners Make

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*Views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of Standlee Premium Products, LLC.*

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Connect with Dr. Nielsen:

• Learn more at his University page
• Email - bdn@msu.edu
• Spartan Equine REsearch – The SPERE Lab Facebook Page

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Read full episode transcript

Katy Starr (00:00:01):

Hi, I'm Katy Starr and you're listening to Beyond the Barn. Join me on this journey as we bust equine and livestock nutrition myths and sit down with some of the most intriguing experts from across the country. We'll also take you behind the scenes of how premium western quality forage is grown and brought to your favorite farm and ranch retail store. I'm so glad you're here.

 

Katy Starr (00:00:27):

Welcome back to another episode of Beyond the Barn, Dr. Vineyard. Thanks for being here with me today.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:00:33):

Thanks Katy for having me.

 

Katy Starr (00:00:35):

So, today we're diving into a topic that affects every horse owner, even if we don't always realize it, and that's understanding what good science actually looks like. Because in the horse world we see a lot of phrases like research backed, clinically proven, or supported by science. But what do those things really mean and how can horse owners tell the difference between solid research and really good marketing? To help us break that down, we are joined by Dr. Brian Nielsen. He's a professor of equine exercise physiology at Michigan State University where he spent decades teaching, researching, and publishing in the field of equine science. He's also been heavily involved in the horse industry himself, from working with racehorses to serving as president of the Equine Science Society. Dr. Nielsen has dedicated much of his career to helping people better understand horses through science. So, today we're going to talk about how horse owners can become a little more scientifically savvy when it comes to the products, research and claims that we see every day. So, thanks for joining us today, Dr. Nielsen.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:01:40):

Thank you so much for having me. Again, this is a topic that's near and dear to my heart, so I'll be able to visit with it. Maybe provide a little guidance to your listeners that can help them in the future.

 

Katy Starr (00:01:50):

Absolutely. And so just for our listeners, a reminder that any of the topics we cover on the Beyond the Barn Podcast are more generalized and not specific to any individual horse or any specific situation. Be sure to always work with your veterinarian and nutritionist before making any drastic changes to your horse's feed program. Or you can reach out to us with questions for our PhD equine nutritionists on any specifics that you'd like to know. So, Dr. Nielsen, why don't you tell us just a little bit about your background with horses and where you grew up?

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:02:20):

Well, I grew up in southwestern Wisconsin. Not really a mecca of the horse world, but we had horses until about five or six and then my dad sold them because he thought they were dangerous. So, he bought us motorcycles, . So, that tells you the level of intelligence of my family. I have all kinds of other animals growing up. Worked at a vet clinic through my four years of high school. Had zero interest in horses because they were big, scary, and I figured you'd be riding across a field and they'd step in a gopher hole, break a leg, y'all die. Again, didn't want anything to do with them. But was working with a local dairy farmer baling hay, he showed Belgian Draft horses. I figured, okay, that's cool. You don't have to ride those things. So, I got involved with that during high school a little bit, but I was getting very bored of working at this vet clinic, wonderful vet that I was working with.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:03:05):

But it was pretty much half of it was dairy with your arm up the backside of a cow and the other half was spaying and neutering and giving shots to dogs and cats. And so I was playing Euchre in study hall because that's what you should be doing your senior year of high school. And one of the guys mentioned he worked as a trail guide on horseback through a state park and I'm like, that would be a nice change. Went out there, interviewed, got the job. The guy who hired me, he mentioned he just passed away last year, still stayed in touch, but he said, I knew you had no horse experience but I'd never had anybody hand me a five page resume before to ride horse. He goes, in fact, I'd never had anybody hand me a resume. And that started a ride I never would've predicted. My life, as a lot of your listeners would know, is once you start with this horse drug, it's addicting and started college as a chemistry major. Say it with me, nerd . But that horse thing had started off in my sophomore year. I had returned from an internship working on a Morgan horse farm in Vermont. Had left there to go start riding bareback broncs in rodeo because riding dressage out there in Vermont and riding bucking horses, they have a lot in common.

 

Katy Starr (00:04:13):

They go in hand in hand. totally.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:04:16):

But I switched to animal science and have never looked back. And where I got involved with the racehorse thing is one evening of my junior year, my horse prof, Larry Caston, shout out, great guy wrote up to me and said, how much do you weigh? I told him, he said, okay this summer you're going to be breaking and galloping thoroughbred racehorses. All righty. Knew nothing about it. But again, that is the direction my life took. Got heavily involved in breaking and training thoroughbred racehorses, then did graduate work at Texas a and m in this area and continue on with racing quarter horses. And I've had a lot of fun with it ever since.

 

Katy Starr (00:04:48):

That's awesome. And I have to bring this up because when I was prepping for this episode and I asked about some interesting facts about you, you actually had a plethora of interesting facts . But one of them that really drew my attention is you set a world record. Can you talk about that? Because I find that very fascinating.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:05:07):

So, many years ago I was dating an individual who was in the dairy world. We ended up getting married, spoiler alert. Ended up getting divorced. Spoiler, spoiler alert.

 

Katy Starr (00:05:17):

.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:05:17):

But anyway, she had showed me a newspaper article that her mom had seen about a race to find the world's fastest cow. Her mom thought it was funny. That's why she showed her daughter, her daughter thought it was funny so she showed me and I was like, well I could win that. I didn't have a cow, I had to get one. But yes, Taffy and I set a world record for the fastest mile under saddle. And then we did race a second time. We had way more fun with this than I would've ever imagined. But the TV show, Ripley's, believe it or not, wanted to film a race. So, we also won a half mile race and then I retired from cow racing, undefeated world champion . And maybe the fact that I proposed to her in the winner circle with a bowl ring , because that's what every girl wants. A big honking ring might have explained why. Okay, maybe she decided to get somebody more intelligent later on in life, . So, anyway, that's the story on cow racing.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:06:07):

The racing cow story is just incredible. Like that story, I'm sure you've told that a hundred times, but I never get tired of hearing it. That's so unique. .

 

Katy Starr (00:06:16):

That's awesome.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:06:17):

I've had a lot of weird, I would say life happenings and a lot of them, I don't actually view them as strange anymore. Racing cows. It's like sure, why not. That's normal. .

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:06:29):

But you're the real deal Brian. You also, you've bred your own horses. You train them off your farm, you take them to the track like you are the real deal horsemen and I think that's really important. You're the real deal scientist and you're the real deal horsemen and I think that's just a really unique attribute.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:06:43):

Thank you. And actually part of the reason besides loving racing is I've never been dependent on my horses to feed my family. And that gives me a huge benefit because I can experiment a little bit now, okay, the type of experimenting I'm doing is the type of experimenting I would criticize later on because it's all anecdotal.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:07:03):

End of one .

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:07:03):

I try something end of one. Yeah, . But at least I'm able to see, okay, will this work or is this going to be an absolute failure from everything from racing horses without shoes and then people at the track like, you can't do that. I'm like, ah, I looked at the racing regs and there's nothing that says you can't race them barefoot if you have shoes on, they have to be aluminum. But I also want to do everything by the rule. So, ah, okay, I'll put shoes on. But actually was able to race, I would argue very successfully without shoes. My horses not me.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:07:33):

I love that. That's amazing.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:07:34):

And like in 2004 was the last time I ever raced a horse out of a stall other than, you know, load them up in the trailer, take them to the track that day and at the track for the few hours before the race. They have to be in a stall. But I've been able to have my horses live out in pasture and they live a absolutely wonderful life. And I also never worry about injuries other than them being stupid as horses , but not the race relating injuries that we see that are caused by trauma related. Because my horses, and we could spend a lot of time talking about bone physiology, but bone response to the horses you place on it, my horses sprint every day all on their own, hence they never get weak bones as a result. Again, things that are very atypical in the race industry, but I'm able to try it and see and those can often lead to other research projects that we do based on, okay, hey maybe there's something here. And that's kind of why it's been fun being able to do that.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:08:28):

I'm so glad you've got to talk about it too. You know, these little experiments that you're doing on your own horses, you're the bone physiology expert, you race your horses off pasture, they have lower risk of injury. I will say I love hearing that because I like to mirror that philosophy with my own dressage horse. So, I just showed this weekend at WEC fourth level dressage. My horse was the only barefoot horse probably at the show. And he also lives full-time in a pasture. I was very much the anomaly, right? And guess what? We walked home with four blue ribbons. Now I'm not saying that to brag. I'm not saying that to say he's, he won because he is barefoot. I'm just saying that horses that are managed atypically from your typical way of like your, the way the industry is doing it can still be successful. I just love hearing your story and I wanted to add onto it. So, for anybody who's listening that thinks you've got to put shoes on your horse or you've got to keep them in a stall because that's what everybody else is doing, no, you got to do what's right for your own horse and your own situation.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:09:27):

Along that same lines for many years, Dr. Hilary Clayton was an endowed chair here at Michigan State in the vet school internationally known for dressage. And, and I love that we were having this conversation and yeah, she showed her dressage horses barefoot also. There's a lot of folks even the Swedish eventing team, there was a big push. A lot of those have gone barefoot. I do a lot of work with the folks over in Sweden actually will be over there next in exactly about a month for a dissertation defense. And a lot of folks are catching on that we, and they've also been doing this feeding racehorses with a high forage diet that people thought previously you couldn't do that. And no you can.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:10:07):

Well let's talk about that science.

 

Katy Starr (00:10:09):

We'll have to have you back on to talk about that.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:10:12):

That's right , there we go.

 

Katy Starr (00:10:13):

Yes, . That's awesome. Well I love that so much. So, Dr. Nielsen, kind of getting into our topic today, when you hear a product claim that it's research backed, what does that phrase actually mean to you versus what you think it means to most horse owners?

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:10:31):

For me it usually doesn't mean anything because I don't know what it means. In other words, it could be there is real good science behind it or they might A. Pretend they've done good science and it's actually bad science. Or they may be using this idea of, well other people did research on something similar, not exactly the same, but because it worked with their product or any different species. Or oftentimes people do like cell culture work and we could talk about like joint supplements and things like that where okay, maybe in a cell culture it works, but what about in the living animal? So, for me it doesn't mean anything. I kind of glance over that and it's like, okay, let's move into was it really good science or was it bad science or was it really no science? But a lot of people take it as gospel, wow, there's science that works and that's where I want to encourage people step back and then explore it a little bit more deeply.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:11:34):

And I would say probably the majority of time there's really not what I would call a good science that backs things up. It's used as a claim for marketing purposes. I get it. I totally, if I was involved with selling something, you have to market it and there's people that are very honest and do a great job with it. And then there's some that are very misleading. So, that's where if we can train horse owners to be just a little bit more skeptical and think about the things that they need to consider, we'll make a better consumer.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:12:04):

So, there's actually a term for what you're talking about and it's kind of a newer term I've been thinking a lot about and it's called research washing. So, it's basically the concept, you know, it's the practice of using these scientific language, using these fancy words or selective data, you know, cherry picking to create the appearance of like rigorous scientific research. But more so it's, it's just the actual scientific, you know, data. It's either it's weak or it's misleading or it was done in different species. So, I think it is important for horse owners to know that research washing happens, but it's also very hard for most people. I mean even trained scientists to know if it's research washing or not. Until you take a step back and take the next step. Okay, are there any studies that are cited? What studies are they, what species was that study done in? And you know, we're going to talk a little bit more about what makes a good study, but I think horse owners can just number one, realize that research backed on its own, it means nothing. And number two, but there are companies that are trying to do the right thing. They are trying to use efficacious ingredients that do have good research behind them. But in order to know that you've got to do your homework.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:13:16):

So, I want to give you another little example that is even beyond research washing. And I love that term, I may use that. But even things that like horse owners understand the importance of, but they might not fully understand it and they may get misled. And I'll give you an example. Many years ago I was asked to write an article on electrolytes for the thoroughbred times a racing publication. And I used as an example, I didn't name it by name, a very popular commercially available, one of our local feed places sells it electrolyte supplement. And I gave what the ingredients were and I explained why that should effectively not make an absolute any difference to your horse. And for example, if I recall right, it can contained like 0.64 grams of sodium chloride and I'll skip everything.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:14:07):

Yeah, it was one of those sugar was the first ingredient. Electrolytes probably .

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:14:12):

The funny part is, so most people will realize that yeah, sodium chloride and potassium are the electrolytes that a horse would need. Let's actually talk about potassium. Good forage typically has lots.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:14:23):

Plenty of potassium

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:14:24):

So, typically we don't need to worry about that. But I received a phone call from the editor from that magazine like, Hey Brian, I got a phone call here, I need you to call this person back. It was the person who produced that supplement.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:14:38):

Okay.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:14:38):

And I was like ugh, really dreading it. And actually as it turned out the conversation was great. He was like, well how do you know what the requirements are? And I explained to him what the horse NRC was. He had no idea. So, this is a person producing an electrolyte supplement, you know, the dose syringe type one commonly used and he didn't even know what the NRC was.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:14:57):

That's not unusual by the way.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:14:59):

It's not unusual but sad.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:15:01):

That's sad. Very sad .

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:15:02):

But he's like, well can I use you as a consultant type? You know, get your advice on stuff. I'm like, oh actually I'm at a university. This is what we do for free. So, yes, I'll be glad to help out anytime. He never actually ever followed up on me. And this was probably 20 years ago and you can still buy that same supplement. And it contains again, if I recall right, 0.64 grams of sodium chloride. Now why that's important is when I got that phone call, I was in the Detroit airport, I decided I'm going to stop by the McDonald's there. And I picked up one of those salt packets, it contains 0.7 grams of sodium chloride . So, that little packet of salt that you get for free with your fries or you could probably just steal one. It contains more than the supplement that it costs seven bucks for and it contributes almost nothing to the electrolyte balance of the horse. So, this one is one where they don't even need science because people know about electrolytes and you can get scammed that easily. It's sad. And by the way, I also believe there's a difference in companies that just don't know and they think they're doing good. This guy, I chalked it up to that at the first part, but then I explained to him, no, no, no, no. And here we are again like 20 years later and he is still selling it. So, suddenly you're corrupt.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:16:17):

Wow. Great story.

 

Katy Starr (00:16:18):

I was just about to give some kudos because I was like, I love that he's asking for your help and then nothing happened from it. Then I was like, oh man, .

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:16:26):

Quite the bummer.

 

Katy Starr (00:16:27):

So, why do you think then though, that the horse industry is kind of especially vulnerable to confusing marketing with science?

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:16:35):

So, I'll compare a horse industry to the livestock industry, livestock industry, say, does it help? If there's not proof it does, they aren't going to buy it. Horse people tend to say, well will it hurt? And if it doesn't look like it's going to hurt, they'll try it. And I don't think it's because they're ignorant, I think it's because they care about their animals. I mean,

 

Katy Starr (00:16:55):

Yeah, absolutely

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:16:55):

Livestock industry. I'm not saying those individuals don't care about their animals, but it is much more of a does this help the bottom line? If it doesn't, let's not bother.

 

Katy Starr (00:17:06):

Well it's a production aspect, right? It's a totally different game.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:17:10):

Totally different than performance and performance, I don't know how you determine a difference on a lot of things. I look at race times the huge difference it would actually have to make to be able to detect it scientifically. You would need so many, it's just never going to happen. But sometimes just a tiny, tiny little difference in performance can make a huge difference in financial outcomes. So, there's that. I heard a trainer that I worked for many years ago, he said, well I don't know if it works, but if the other trainers are using it and it gives an advantage, I want that same advantage. I get it. And then it does go back to the fact that our horse, horse owners care. They want to do everything they can for their animal because they love their animal. That's great. But it makes us blind sometimes.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:17:59):

And we're really desperate. And oftentimes, for instance, let's say you have a veterinary problem. If your vet says, you know what, just give it time. People don't want that answer. They want to be proactive, they want to do something. And that's often why we see supplements being given is, well we want to do something. In reality, just give the animal time off might be what it takes. But you don't want to do that because you want to get back to it. You want to make your animal better. So, I don't blame horse owners for doing it, but I still need to caution them that, be a skeptic.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:18:32):

Yeah. And I think it's important for horse owners to remember, you know, marketing is its whole entity, right? I mean people get their master's degree and PhD in marketing. So, there's a whole nother world of of people trying to figure out how to the psychology, you know, and, and one of the reasons I think that horse owners, they care so much and the psychology of what I like to look at is fear-based marketing. So, be on the lookout for that. You know, when you're scared of something it kind of shuts down your ability to critically evaluate things. You just want to be safe. So, if you're trying to be sold something using fear like, you know, avoid inflammatory ingredients or this product has no fillers because you know all those terrible fillers that are, you're feeding your horse, you know, you need to feed something with no fillers. You know, those sound like a bad thing but it's actually, it's a fear-based marketing tactic that makes you immediately shut down your critical thinking skills and just sort of agree with it. And I'm going to do this to be safe because I want to do the best for my horse. So, be on the lookout for that.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:19:35):

So, I saw an ad and I wish I would've kept it for teaching purposes. It was an magazine once. And the ad said, and it showed this young lady, her arms wrapped around the neck of her horses. She's leaning over it and says something to the effect of, a lot of people say horses don't need vitamin C, but I'm giving my horse vitamin C because I love them. All righty. There's a reason why most people say horses don't require vitamin C is because they don't , they're not a guinea pig and they're not a primate. Those are the two that need it. Anyway, but I was like, oh but if you love your horse you better give them vitamin C.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:20:07):

So, if you don't give vitamin C, that means you must not love your horse.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:20:10):

Absolutely. And most people would be like very fearful. A little different fear than what you're saying, but fearful of "well I don't want to be accused of not loving my horse." So, that was such fun.

 

Katy Starr (00:20:21):

What about though, if something worked for a friend's horse, why isn't that enough evidence or proof that it wouldn't work for their horse or will definitely work for their horse. If I could word it that way.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:20:36):

Actually I want to give you a great example of a treatment I've used with racehorses and I actually have termed it, this is my own term, the star treatment. And actually behind me are a number of horses that I've actually used the star treatment on and I've had actually great success with it. And one of the cute ones is right behind me for anybody who's actually listening to this or watching this. And you know, instead of listening, I rarely, rarely, rarely, if ever would bet on one of my own horses when they're racing. Because one, if my horse wins, great, I'm making money. If my horse loses, I don't need to waste more money on it . So, I don't bet. The one large picture behind me though it was kind of a fun one from the standpoint the horse was a 30 to one morning line long shot and I used the star treatment on them that morning and I was so confident of this horse winning that I actually gave my grad student that was with me money to bet on him.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:21:30):

Because I thought for certain he would win. That's another fun one. I have many more pictures in this office I can show about the star treatment. But the other one that I have to share, a dear friend of mine, Carolyn Bay, she's been very involved with the horse industry for years and years. She and her late husband had a horse called Cold Cash 123. And he had a very successful year. I think this was, I could Google what year was having a very successful year. And on like December 30th of that year, he was entered in the Sunland Park championship. And the thought was is if Cold Cash 123 would win that race, he would be named world champion racing Quarter Horse. The concern was as Cold Cash, it usually took him a long time to get rolling and that race was only 400 yards.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:22:14):

His ideal race was 440 yards. You wouldn't think 40 yards would make a difference, but so she was lacking confidence. So, I asked her, because we were both on the executive board for the Michigan or the Great Lakes Quarter Horse Association. I'm like, Carolyn, would you allow me to use the star treatment on you? And she was kinda laughing, she didn't believe it, but she is kind of humoring this kid. And she's like, okay. And I said, by the way, would you like a world record time for 400 yards? And she laughed and she's like, no, no, no, just winning would work. It turned out I actually did give two treatments to him. Because I wasn't certain about the first one. Cold Cash ended up winning that race was named Real Champion Racing Quarter Horse. This is like 2011 or something like that. And in fact he had the second fastest 400 time ever in quarter horse racing. I was like, Carolyn, if you wanted that world record, I could have actually done that for you . So, I often use this as an example to my students of a treatment that actually works really good. And again, I, I see another picture there in the backdrop of a horse that I used it for. So, there are some treatments that absolutely work and you know, I can use examples like this.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:23:19):

What is the star treatment? Now you have to tell us .

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:23:22):

Okay. Yeah I guess I hadn't mentioned that.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:23:24):

.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:23:25):

So, you have to do this at night or early morning. You see a shooting star and you, you put your wish in . Okay, I don't like the fact you're laughing now I got to be a little bit more specific. And in fact you have to be specific when you do this. So, for instance, one of the horses who's actually on the backdrop that day I had two horses in and I said two wins. Because I'd seen the shooting star when I went out to feed and it turns out one of the horses won, the other one didn't. But it dawned on me the horse that won, he won two weeks prior. Mm. So, that was two wins.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:24:01):

That was when I learned you need to be very specific on your wish. And so now what I do is I go ahead and I'm like, well I got Misty of Chincoteague in the third and she's in four hole and I want her to win and not get disqualified because I want to remind folks, it's not like a higher deity that you're doing this with. It's a rock. It's a little piece of burning rock. And like with the Cold Cash one, I thought I had seen a shooting star, but sometimes you're like ooh. And that's why I gave him a second dose. And the second dose, it was great. , I remember where I was, I was on Birch Run Road and man it was, I was like, oh dude, I'm going to use this second one up on you. And again it paid off and he was world champion racing quarter horse.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:24:41):

Well I'm going to remember that next horse show I go to. Thank you .

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:24:47):

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I guess we should talk about this a little bit more because I don't reveal this star treatment to everybody, but I do reveal to my students and what's interesting is I'm leading up with this and by the way, everything I have said is a hundred percent true. When they find out what it is, suddenly they ah duh. We thought you were going to give us something real like something we had cooked up in my lab. And I want this to be a great example of why you should not believe anecdotal evidence. If I had mentioned it was a concoction of this little chemical and this little chemical and would you be tempted to believe me?

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:25:21):

Much more so, right. Most people would.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:25:24):

For some reason a shooting star doesn't sound believable. Right. That's why anecdotal evidence, oh I gave it to my horse. Who cares? That's not a scientific study. By the way, when I'm racing a horse, I actually do go out early morning and I look for shooting stars because I am superstitious.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:25:42):

. Absolutely. You're a thoroughbred guy.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:25:44):

I've actually had, even one of my students is like, I think we can publish this now because of how many times it works. Now it might help that on days when I think I have a horse that's legitimate, I look a little harder for that shooting star. If I think I have a horse that has no chance, I may as well sleep in . The deal is, is again because somebody did it with their horse, that should mean nothing to you because again, would you believe the shooting star? I have a feeling you two do not believe it. And I think that's a shame because this is something that really does work .

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:26:16):

But it is a great example of where, I mean I can show people pictures and they can chat with Carolyn Bay and she will attest, I gave her horse two treatments and he became world champion and he had second fastest time. But things change with time. Lameness is a great example. When is a horse always exactly the same degree of lameness? So, let's say you have a horse that always become lame so you start to administer something, well then he gets better. Well I'm a runner, I get lame periodically and I do nothing. Because I'm a guy, because I would never think of getting medical intervention and it gets better.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:26:48):

Yeah.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:26:49):

So, be careful about what your friends say. It doesn't mean you should ignore it, but I would give it maybe 5% belief and maybe something worth again checking into a little bit more. But just because it worked for their horse, it's a confounding factor of time. Other things change.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:27:06):

And you know, that's got me thinking too. Whenever someone you know has an issue and they have success with a treatment or a supplement or whatever with their horse, they also are putting their intention on addressing that issue. And they may not be sharing the full picture of yes they gave the supplement but they also gave them rest. They also called the vet out. They also changed their head. You know, there could have been so many other variables that you don't have the full picture of. But what does work is wishing on a shooting star and putting your intention where you want it to be. Right.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:27:37):

I don't even know about this intention, but that shooting star Kelly you got, you got the message loud and clear.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:27:41):

And so, I think intention is good. And so, and we cannot, we can all agree horse owners have good intentions for their horses. Just make sure your intentions are focused and not wasting money And not wasting time but really trying to approach it with the best evidence possible. So, yeah, let's talk about what's good evidence and what's not.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:28:00):

. Well and I like your comment about the intentions and, and I'll even draw in hoof supplements and, and I'm not here to say whether they work or not, but when does a person often start to give hoof supplements? When they have a hoof problem? They also probably bring in their farrier at the same time and they change other things. And you know, I look at here in Michigan, like we're at a wet season right now. There's times in the midsummer where it's hot and dry and looking at the time factor. So, if you have a foot that's all mushy and soft because it's living in mud, give it a few months, it'll be different. And then it's hard and it's brittle. And if you think it's because of the supplement that you gave him, it might be, but it could be all these other factors that you suddenly changed up at the exact same time because you put your intentions into we have a hoof problem now we need to cure it. Mm-Hmm

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:28:50):

For sure.

 

Katy Starr (00:28:51):

So, what about also before and after photos? Because those I think sometimes can make us think a certain way when we see that. So, why are they so convincing to horse owners?

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:29:03):

Because you see it with your own eyes. What's wonderful I have a friend who she does nutritional consulting and she posted a Facebook post some before and after pictures. And she, again, anybody who knew her knew that there had to be more to it because she also falls into the skeptical category. But she was like, I only changed one magical thing and look at this huge difference and in the one picture the horse looks skinny and just not so great. And the next picture, the horse looks wonderful. Well it turns out the pictures were taken within like 24 hours of each other.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:29:33):

The same day.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:29:34):

It might have been the same day, I don't recall. And the only thing she changed was the positioning of the horse and the lighting. And what a difference. You know, the other thing with regarding before and after pictures, a number of years ago I had a student in class that had gone ahead and she was mentioning a vitamin mineral supplement that she gave her horse and her horse always looked so great when it was on it and then awful when it's not on it. And she's like, yeah, my horse hadn't been on. And then I put my horse back on it again and suddenly started looking great. And I said, so when was it that you put your horse back on it again? And she said, well like around finals time last spring.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:30:11):

Finals time, spring. I'm thinking, was there anything else that was going on? As the horses begin to shed, they're out on pasture, green grass, sunshine, all these things. And it was just a perfect example of if you took before and after pictures, it would make sense because in January I'm certain the horse did not look as great as it did in early May. And later on that year I was giving a talk down in Lexington, I was visiting with some individuals in the feed industry, shared that story and they said, oh we love it when we get new clients in the springtime because they're just like, oh this feed is great.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:30:44):

Yes.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:30:45):

And it doesn't mean the feed isn't great but they get to see it with their own eyes. The changes which may or may not be related to the feed. So, before and after.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:30:54):

I can definitely relate to that. That's definitely a thing. Like never start a feed trial in the middle of winter, like when you know, . I think before and after pictures may have their place, especially with your own horse because you look at your own horse every single day and like it's hard to see change. So, I do think they have a place, especially when you're looking at musculature too. Because coat shininess can change but you know, if you're looking at like top line that takes time to change, you know? And you can't change that by the angle, you know, as easily anyway. But I do think they have a time and place, especially when you're, I like them for weight loss. Because sometimes, people don't realize that their horse is fat until they like see the weight loss. Like oh my gosh, yes that horse looks a lot more fat. But as far as a proof of concept or proof of evidence, you know they're kind of a light light evidence.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:31:47):

Yeah, that's a good way to put it. It is light evidence.

 

Katy Starr (00:31:49):

But I think also like what you were talking about before about intention when you're doing your before and after photos, like be genuine about it. Like if you're going to do it for yourself and try to see if there are some changes over time with your horse doing it in the same location as the days go on, sometimes the lighting and stuff changes. But if you can think about where the sun is at that certain time or if you're doing it in the shade, like just keeping things as consistent as possible, you won't be perfect. But if you're as consistent as possible, you'll get a better picture of what's actually happening with your horse.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:32:24):

Definitely. And again, I love the idea of using it for your own horse, especially weight loss, weight gain, you know even the muscling thing one, certainly nutrition can make a difference. But then also training and oftentimes again here we have a confounding effect because suddenly we put a horse into training, we change up, its feeding as a result. And so is the change in muscling due to nutrition or is it the fact that you actually have the horse in training?

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:32:47):

Could be both.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:32:48):

And that's where it's light evidence for research. But it can tell you whether you're headed in the right direction with your own horse. And that's what we really care about.

 

Katy Starr (00:32:56):

Right. So, let's talk about research itself. If there is one thing that horse owners should understand about research design, what would it be?

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:33:06):

I would say kind of falling into what we were just talking about before and after isn't good research, it's just anecdotal and there is a lot of people who they will use like a day zero value as a baseline. And then just looking at how things change from there. We are actually like within a day or two of submitting a a paper for publication looking at a joint supplement. And long and short of that is didn't see any benefit to the joint supplement. But we did see both treatment groups, the control and the treatment changing in lameness over time. And so if you go ahead and you don't have a control group that you're looking at in comparison to your treatment group, if you're just looking at here it was at the beginning and here is it how it is later on, again that's not good research.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:33:58):

It's maybe a starting point as to justify looking into it in a better study. But I would say that's probably one of the the biggest things I would say. But we see people doing this all the time and even as we've been discussing the intentions, well if you're changing up something right there because now it's time to do it, that tends to be a very big concern with me. And you'll see research like that get published and oh that always concerns me because it can be extremely misleading to a reader who wants to believe that, oh well here it was at the beginning and here's how it changed. But like this paper we're just getting ready to to submit for publication. We did see those changes over time. But the treatment of the placebo responded the same way.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:34:41):

The same way.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:34:42):

Partially because the horses were being used.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:34:44):

Motion is lotion.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:34:45):

, there you go. Exactly. Or it can make it worse.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:34:49):

Works both ways.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:34:50):

It does both, absolutely.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:34:53):

You know in the average horse owner, you don't need a PhD to look at a study to see if there was a control group. That's actually quite a pretty easy thing to identify. You know, as long as you can get ahold of like the original abstracts at least. And look, you know, was there a group of horses that did not receive this specific treatment that they just were kind of there to see if time changed anything, environment. They're kind of your baseline and that's a very good tip.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:35:18):

And I would like it even better than no treatment. I want a placebo.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:35:23):

Very good point.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:35:24):

And it's funny, we have gone ahead and done a lot of research where we use a placebo for a supplement that often consists of like flour, like baking flour mixed with like a little Kool-Aid or something to give it a little color. And I remember we had this one farm where the trainer who had this one horse, it was like, oh man, she's doing so much better now that she's on this and you know, where can I get this at? I'm like, we were in the middle of a study so I couldn't tell them that well if you go down to your local grocery store you can buy this bag of flour. And then once he was unblinded to it, he was like, oh well do you think that made a difference? Like a few grams of flour? Nope. But the deal is is having that placebo in there that keeps people from totally guessing what it is, is probably the next level versus horses that are just aren't given anything.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:36:16):

And I'll give you another little example of what I considered to be a good research design. Many years ago I had a company that contacted me regarding this calcium supplement. I won't go into the details on it. I actually tried to talk about it because I was like, I don't think it's going to affect bone. And they were pushing, which by the way I love because they're willing to put their money where their mouth was. But I said in order to do it, the only way I will do it is if you allow me to investigate the role of your calcium supplement against a similar amount of calcium that comes from limestone, calcium carbonate because that's often used.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:36:50):

The one that most everybody uses in almost all feed preparations. Absolutely. Yeah. That's the average calcium source.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:36:57):

Yeah because just adding extra calcium that's not really as fair as checking against the commonly used one. And I was actually surprised it did alter some markers of bone formation and so it was like, huh, they kind actually have a little something here. I was very surprised by that. And again, I was impressed that they were willing to put their money where their mouth is because most companies won't because they're like, oh research is expensive. Yeah but you want people to buy your product which is expensive without anything to back it up. So again, not just having a control versus a treatment but a placebo versus a treatment. I think it actually even, and even in this last one that we did look at these joint supplements, even though there was really only two treatments, we divided each of the treatments up into two subcategories tinted with a different color and different odor. So, this farm that we were working at, you know there were 40 horses on this study and they thought there was four different treatments but there was actually only two. If you can keep people guessing, it provides for a level of better research.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:37:56):

Yeah you're trying to avoid the placebo effect .

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:37:59):

Exactly. And there's research that shows like the more expensive a placebo is, the better it works. The placebo effect really is very real. It's if you think something's going to work then you see the improvement.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:38:11):

The power of intention. The power of intention.

 

Katy Starr (00:38:13):

Yes. Yes.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:38:14):

and I even use like people say, well your horse can't tell the difference. But I look back as an exercise rider, I'd have a trainer try something and he is like, so hey Brian, what do you think? How did the horse feel? Did he feel better today? And I'm like, yeah, I guess so.

 

Katy Starr (00:38:28):

It's more about you not necessarily your horse.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:38:30):

. And my thought is like I didn't want to admit that I didn't really tell any difference but, but if you're telling me that I should have felt a difference, I'm going to say okay, maybe I felt something again, that intention.

 

Katy Starr (00:38:42):

That is such a great point. I'm really glad that you mentioned that. So, when a nutrition study is conducted by a university or a company, what boxes must be checked for it to be considered valid and publishable?

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:38:57):

Well publishable is not the same as valid. Because there is a lot of studies that get published that if I was the reviewer, I've got to be that cranky old man in my old age and I was like eh, this is junk again, I think the first step is if you don't have a control group, preferably with a placebo, but at least a control group, I don't consider it to be valid at all. It's nothing better than your neighbor saying hey, it worked for my horse. So, I would love for things to be blinded, but that's not always practical. Often we do research with grad students, that's how they get their degree, that's how they learn to do science. And you don't have an unlimited number of people you can blind to evaluate and the student typically has to know what's being fed. You just try to keep everybody else blind to it. We would love large numbers of horses.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:39:44):

And when you say large numbers in horse research, that's really different than like other species. So, I mean what would you say is a large number? I mean I know it depends.
 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:39:56):

Oh yeah. The issue is, I'll give you a little comparison. I was visiting with our poultry researcher many years ago and for what it cost me to have 10 horses on study, he could either have 1,000 or 10,000 birds.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:40:09):

I believe it.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:40:10):

You can pinpoint like the amino acid requirements so easy, especially when all the birds are exactly the same. Whereas our horses we're lucky sometimes to have 10 horses and often it's a POA and a Quarter horse and an Arab and whatever. It's a mixture. It's nice when they're very tight in terms of being able to have a better chance to see if there's a treatment difference.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:40:35):

To minimize variation due to age, or due to breed, or due to other factors.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:40:41):

We've been using a sheep model, that type of sheep is a model for horses on some of our exercise studies recently. Partially because one, we can do a terminal study and I not feel guilty because these were destined for the food chain anyway. But man we have them all born within like a week of each other. And at times we had like 42 that we've had on project all born within, again a very short period on the last study where we were looking again corticosteroids and joint healing and stuff like that, we were able to have twins. So, you go ahead and have one of the twins on the corticosteroid,

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:41:15):

That's the perfect control group there, .

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:41:19):

Unbelievable, how spoiled. We don't get that in the horse world. And so, it's very challenging and the tighter your animal population is in demographics, the less animals you need. The more varied they are, the more you need. The more varied they are, the more applicable the results are globally because, well maybe it worked on this very tight knit little group of animals that are all exactly alike but it won't apply to a draft horse. Whereas if it's a huge variety. So, your answer is, "it depends" It's so correct. We talk in research about power studies and it's wonderful to be able to do that where you actually try to calculate how many animals you'll need to find a difference. It's a nice idea. Often you have to have done a similar study so you know what the the variation is. And so it's like, well until you do it, you don't know what you need.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:42:10):

And again, it's just like how big of a difference do you need that it actually is of importance to the horse industry. Again, performance for example, it's so hard. A 10th of a second is a pretty big distance, you know, horse race kind of sort of relatively speaking. But man you're never going to detect that in a research setting over the course of a race. So, I don't know. And often we're just stuck with the size that we can get. That doesn't mean it's good research that way, but anybody who deals with horse research realize that's a reality. But I don't want to give a number because,

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:42:45):

Well I think if you see two horses in a, in a trial, that's probably not enough . I think it's fair to say that. But I mean if I see 10, you know, depending on the study, I'm happy , you know,

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:42:57):

So, I shouldn't waste time on this, but I got to share one, Skip Hints, Dr. Harold Hintz Cornell University, he's passed away, wonderful individual and he shared the story if he did research on pandas at the National Zoo and they submitted it to the Journal of Nutrition and it was rejected because they had an N of two.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:43:16):

That's probably the only ones in America, .

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:43:19):

And that was the rebuttal. This is the entire population. You can't get more than the entire population in the country. And so it was accepted, but under horse research now we can normally line up more than two horses.

 

Katy Starr (00:43:31):

Yeah. And obviously with a specific research study we have all these things that we're looking at and once we have more research under our belt, I think one thing that I remember learning about was a study being repeatable. So, that kind of sticks out in my mind as well.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:43:48):

I think repeatable is huge because oftentimes, you know, we talk about type one and type two errors and the difference between these is like when you find something that's significantly different, but in reality it's not, because you can never repeat, it was just an accidental one. Or the type of error where you don't find a difference, even though if you have more animals you would be able to detect one. And so those are ones that we face a lot. And I often look at with research, people will find an item or two that are different and they want to make some huge claims off of that. Kinda like this research whitewashing or whatever term,

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:44:24):

Research washing.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:44:25):

Yeah, yeah. Okay. When you do some things, if you measure enough stuff just accidentally you're going to find some differences. If we talk about a p value of 0.05, what that's kind of saying is like 19 outta 20 times. Those differences are real. One out of 20 times just by pure chance. So, if you're measuring more than 20 things, the odds of finding something that is different just because, and when I see a author make a claim about, well wasn’t statistically different but it was numerically different. That tells me they have a bias, they have an agenda. Because if it's not statistically different,

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:45:04):

It's not different.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:45:04):

It's not different. And often if you take a whole bunch of data and get the averages, what are the odds that the averages will match up? Exactly. They don't. And if you wouldn't be making the same claim the other way that, oh we thought it was going to turn out this way, but numerically the control appeared to be better, they wouldn't make that claim. They would just say they aren't different. And so you can easily detect if somebody has a bias.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:45:31):

When you call out the numerical differences.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:45:33):

Exactly. And if you start seeing somebody do that, start getting really, really skeptical. Huge red flag.

 

Katy Starr (00:45:40):

And so, if I am just a regular horse owner, which I am and I see a claim, what are a few simple questions that I should ask before believing what's said?

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:45:50):

I want to see peer reviewed scientific papers demonstrating efficacy. If they can't provide those, I would start to get very skeptical. Because a lot of ones that you know, they make you believe there's science backing it up. There really isn't. And I'll, I'll give you a an anecdotal story, but this one is legit. They're like, yeah, we heard the shooting star thing before . We don't have quarter horse racing in the state of Michigan right now. I had bought a horse, was planned to race them and then they, the last track closed up that was racing had to send them elsewhere, had to send them off to a different trainer out of state. And I get this as a vet bill and we won't talk about the $62 I spent on electrolytes for a horse that's going to be racing for about 15 seconds. like 62 bucks for salt. Thank you. But I will talk about a supplement that was supposed to be a joint health supplement, this Omega-3 stuff. And I'm looking at it, I'm like, oh, this is a total scam. I contacted the vet that administered this, and they were like, oh, it's supposed to be great for joint health. The issue is, it was flaxseed. Now flaxseed is high in ALA if we believe, if we believe it helps joint health omega threes it would be DHA and EPA because they would inhibit prostaglandins. Again, the evidence suggesting this to be really strong, eh, but let's get back to ALA last time I checked horses were mammals. And as a result probably don't convert ALA to EPA or DHA, you know, with any great thing. So, this being administered is practically useless. I called up the company, I won't give its name.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:47:23):

It is a very commonly used, they have tons of supplements. And it worked my way up the food chain. I finally got to two of the top individuals there, wonderful individuals. I actually, we had a Zoom call and they knew who I was but I allowed them to talk for I believe like 20 minutes trying to justify the use of this supplement. And finally I said, do you actually have scientific proof that this works? And they had to admit no. But then they said, but there is an abstract that's coming out soon that shows it improves fertility. And I said, if you can make my gelding more fertile, then you've done something.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:47:58):

.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:47:58):

I was very happy when they refunded my money and I dealt with them again recently because I had a former student who contacted me, spent 350 bucks on this stuff. I explained to her why scientifically this should not work. And again, I reached out and, and they refunded her money. The problem is, is they don't have science that backs at least this product up. They put together great marketing, they talk about science. They might use science from other studies but not on their own.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:48:29):

Well because they're not feeding that specific product to a horse and doing a study with that product. And there's a big difference between using ingredients that have science behind them and that has a time and place. But if you're trying to make a claim on that product formulation, it's important to kind of take that whole formulation and feed it to a horse. And one way I tell, I like to remind horse owners an easy way to remember how to assess a claim. And I want to share it because it's just a good way to remember it. It actually, I didn't come up with it. A good friend of mine, Dr. Mary Beth Gordon, a former colleague of mine came up with this called the test RIDE. So, you know, you always think about when you try a new horse out, you're going to take it on a test ride, take your supplements on a test ride too.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:49:13):

And you have the mnemonic device of RIDE. So, R stands for research. The gold standard is research done in horses with that entire formulation. But you know, if that doesn't exist, maybe research on the ingredients in horses. If the research is done in mice, hmm, I guess that's better than nothing, but it's almost nothing. So, I as ingredients, do the ingredients make sense? Are you trying to reduce inflammation using ALA? We know that ALA doesn't do that. It's the DHA and EPA, so no, those ingredients don't make sense. D is dose. So, yes, maybe as an efficacious ingredient, but is it at the right amount that's physiologically meaningful. Okay. And again, these aren't easy things to determine, but it's a good question to ask. You can always go back to the original research and see what they fed there. Does that match what's in your supplement? And then E, and this is what everyone can do is efficacy. Evaluate the efficacy on your own horse after 30 days. If this supplement was supposed to make your horse sprout wings and fly 30 days later, is your horse have wings and flying? If he is not quit feeding it, throw it out. And so really evaluate on your own too, like what is the end result I'm looking for? And be honest with yourself. If the end result is not there, it's okay to discontinue or keep feeding if it works. ,

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:50:32):

I love all of that. And, and I want to go back to dose issue and why testing with the product and not some other species or some other dose. Going back to the electrolytes and again, won't have a long conversation regarding what horses actually need electrolytes and what don't. But 0.62 grams or whatever it was, less than the amount of salt in there. We all can believe that hardworking horses sweating a lot, could certainly use some electrolytes. That little bit doesn't make any sense.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:51:00):

It failed the test ride

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:51:02):

It totally did. Exactly. So, I think that's a wonderful thing to keep in mind.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:51:07):

There's one other thing I want to just point out because I, I always, I loved thinking about the horse owner front and I'm a horse owner, right? And the practicality of like, how do we know it's so confusing. There are some signs that companies are interested in taking a step in the right direction and trying to do the right thing. Research is one, are they conducting research or are they supporting university research? I mean, it's so expensive to do horse research. It's so difficult. Any company that's trying to put money back into horse research, I think is a good step in the right direction. There's also a trade organization that you may have seen on supplements called NASC, the National Animal Supplement Council. It's a voluntary organization. You know, companies pay to join, but what they do is they set quality standards for the industry. So, when you see that NASC seal, that means that company has agreed to go through a very strict quality audit.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:51:58):

So, you know, these ingredients should be safe, they're traceable and they have to agree to have an adverse event reporting system. So, you know, if a horse gets sick and then they report it, they keep track of it, it's not required. Supplements are very much unregulated. So, this is as close as what you can get to regulation. You know, I will point out that the seal does not guarantee efficacy. That's what research does. But to me it does signal like a commitment to quality and also a commitment to marketing claim compliance. When these companies join the NASC, they have to agree to not make crazy wild marketing claims. So, it's a step in the right direction. It's not the end all be all. I mean that doesn't mean if it doesn't have the NASC, it's not a good supplement. But I do think it is a signal in the right direction.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:52:43):

Definitely. Again, it's a good starting point. And that and searching out for peer reviewed publications, that's about all we have right now.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:52:51):

That's right, that's right.

 

Katy Starr (00:52:52):

Excellent. So, if you could give horse owners one mindset shift when it comes to buying products, what would it be?

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:53:00):

Be skeptical. . That was easy and quick. But man, that's the first and only thing that I'll tell you is be skeptical.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:53:07):

And I knew you were going to say that. I would say, and this is because I say it a lot all the time, is supplement strategically have a purpose and always be reevaluating. I do think there is a time and place for supplements. I mean, I'll admit I feed a couple myself, but it's very strategic and that's the mindset I, I would like horse owners to take.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:53:26):

And I should also go along with this as like not all supplements are total scams. I mean there are things, it's kind of like,

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:53:33):

There's a lot of them that are, but ,

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:53:36):

But first of all, can we accept the fact that salt is a supplement and realistically having salt available for your horse like in a stall or on a pasture, great thing, you need that. So, a real simple example where no, there are certain things that are totally legit.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:53:51):

Just depends on what your goals are.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:53:52):

Exactly.

 

Katy Starr (00:53:53):

Yeah. And so what's one claim that instantly makes you cautious?

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:53:59):

I would say if they're claiming it does everything, then it probably doesn't do anything. And we could share some fun examples of ones where it's like it'll do this and that and that. If it was really that marvelous, man, that'd be great. But I really, that starts to make me extremely skeptical right from the very beginning. David Marlin, he's over in the UK, he's a huge skeptic on things. We did a, a fun little study or survey and I, not a fan of surveys, but this one was kind of neat regarding a supplement, won't mention which one. And there was a user's group who's in love with this stuff and David Marlin, he actually presented our equine science society. And it was neat. He had 40 some slides for a 12 minute talk and he showed me ahead of time. I was like, you're kidding, you're going to get through it. He got through it great. And I don't know if everybody caught the sarcasm that was implied because it cured blindness. It cured cancer it cured lameness it. And it didn't matter how you administered it and it didn't matter the dose, all these people believed it worked. I was like, there is nothing more convincing that it's purely their opinion and placebo effect than that.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:55:08):

Yeah, that would be my red flag that makes me cautious is it makes a medical claim. So, if suggesting that it can, you know, replace a medical treatment or a veterinary care or like this cures insulin resistance or this cures ulcers, that's an immediate red flag.

 

Katy Starr (00:55:24):

If they said it works for every horse, would that fall in line with something like that?

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:55:29):

Anytime they're over extrapolating things, it kind of makes you a little bit cautious on things. So, yeah, those are my concerns. Sometimes it's just too good to be true. And I also, regarding the efficacy thing, this joint supplement like 20 some years ago contacted this company to ask if they would, we had a study we were going to do all on our own. All they needed to do was provide the supplement for testing and they refused, which whatever. And it was neat when we finally did it on our own and, and I also understand why it was not in their best interest because people give it regardless. And so if you do the research and you find out it doesn't work, that's a really bad thing for their company, even though people will still administer it because whatever the other thing to think about is like in terms of joint supplements, if it actually works, then technically it would be regulated like a drug. And that's a whole new level. Supplements, there's no regulation. So, they were actually, in my opinion, should be very thankful that we showed it didn't do anything because then it continues to be unregulated. Really bizarre way to look at it.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:56:35):

Interesting.

 

Katy Starr (00:56:35):

That is interesting. Yeah. And so as we kind of get to wrap this episode up, what's one thing you wish every horse owner understood about research and maybe some of just your key takeaways from this topic today?

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:56:50):

First of all, science is not pure. Science is so sold. In other words, money controls research heavily because that's what it's all about. Like I'm at a university where research you are evaluated on it. How do you do your yearly evaluations? Your raises all depend upon are you bringing in dollars? If you're not bringing in dollars, good luck. And that's the way it is. I would say it's broken, but that's the way it is. And so you find people research washing because the way to keep getting funding is to make things look better or more interesting than they often are. So, first of all, is money at stake? In other words, do the research results impact somebody's financial interest? Is there a conflict of interest? Now, there are companies that do research and we were doing some research many, many years ago for this one individual. He didn't like how the research results were going, and he still technically owes me $25,000, but he was a retired lawyer. And I'm like, I'm not going to battle him on this because that's just a whole other hassle. And so that's an example of some people don't like the truth. By contrast, I was doing research for another company and the results came back negative and they're like, eh, okay, well that's good. At least we know we don't need to spend more time working on this.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (00:58:13):

. And that's the way to do it. Right? That's the right way to do it. Yeah. And it's hard to do research. It's expensive to do research. I think that horse owners need to understand, and you're a university and you rely on this external funding a lot to get some of this work done. And so I would say if you're a horse owner, like recognize that research is hard, research is expensive, and please support the companies that are giving money to the universities to do research, support the companies that are putting the resources into doing research. And yes, is there money at stake when a company puts money into research? Sure there is, but there's a hundred more companies out there that aren't even bothering to give back to the industry and give back to the knowledge base. And so I guess that's what I would say is like we need more research, not less and more funding and it's just hard. So, put your money where the companies that are trying to do the right thing.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:59:03):

Absolutely. And there are, again, lots of great companies, lots of great people. And then there are some where it's like, ugh. And the interesting thing is, those of us in the world that we work in, we kind of also know like the researchers that will sell their souls versus the ones who try to be a little bit more honest and upright. But it's the average horse person. I don't know how you know that. It's tricky. Mm-Hmm . But again, I love companies that are willing at least to put the money out there, to do the research, to find out if it works or to improve the product. If there's things that could be done to improve it.

 

Katy Starr (00:59:36):

Yeah, that's the way to do it. So, Dr. Nielsen, how can our listeners stay connected with you after this episode?

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (00:59:42):

Obviously email. If somebody had a specific question, I am scared of doing that from the standpoint of like, oh, you could get inundated, but my email address is B as in boy, D as in dog, N as in nancy @msu.edu for Michigan State University .edu. Also on Facebook, you could follow our lab's webpage. Don't post tons of that results, but sometimes when we have some really exciting stuff, and that's the Spartan Equine Research Lab and you could probably find it that way. But yeah, sometimes when we have some really cool things that we think our horse owners would benefit from, we share it on there.

 

Katy Starr (01:00:15):

Awesome. I'll be sure to put that in our show notes. And for our listeners, thank you so much for being on today. We appreciate you guys being here and hope you found this episode to be valuable and helpful for you. If you have further questions, please feel free to reach out to us and Dr. Vineyard and Dr. Nielsen, thanks so much for being on with us today.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (01:00:34):

Yes, thank you. It was fun.

 

Dr. Brian Nielsen (01:00:36):

It's been my pleasure. Been a lot of fun.

 

Katy Starr (01:00:39):

Thanks for listening to the Beyond the Barn podcast by Standlee Forage. We'd love for you to share our podcast with your favorite people and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite listening platform. Until next time, keep your cinch tight and don't forget to turn off the water.