December 2006

Manage Your Insulin-Resistant Horse

Management comes down to good old exercise and diet, but this time it’s not just a matter of “should.”

The first time we discussed insulin resistance was in 1999, when we did a field trial with magnesium supplementation of chronically laminitic and cresty horses and ponies. We wanted to see if there might be any truth to the "folk lore" that magnesium can help with laminitis.

What we saw were amazing, obvious changes in many of the supplemented animals, both in terms of foot comfort and obesity/abnormal fat deposits. These results caused our veterinary editor, Dr. Eleanor Kellon, to wonder if many of the cases of chronic laminitis might be linked to insulin resistance (IR), since magnesium is well documented to often be deficient in people with IR and…