Page 70 - May 2018 Speedhorse

“A blood sample gives a picture of what the body is doing right at this point in time, while a hair sample gives a longer- term picture.”
by Heather Smith Thomas
Horse owners usually try to provide
adequate feed for their horses with proper quality and balanced nutri- tion. Some owners wonder about
using hair analysis to determine if a horse has adequate nutrients in the diet or if he is lacking
grains and supplements, along with nutrient and diet calculations, rather than looking at hair,” Duren says.
Brian Nielsen, PhD, a Professor of exercise physiology and nutrition at Michigan State Univer- sity, says there are many horsemen who believe in the validity of testing hair samples and there are a lot of companies that recommend it to determine which of their products you should utilize to aid your horse’s nutrition or resolve a deficiency.
“One example is hair analysis to determine whether a horse’s selenium requirements are being met. I was recently asked about this topic and my response was to mention a story relayed to me in grad school by my major professor at Texas A&M, Dr. Gary Potter. To test the validity of hair analy- sis, he sent hair samples to check the requirements/ status of the horse or horses he was working with. He sent samples from a white horse and some from a brown horse and they came back with completely different levels. The ironic thing was that those hair samples were from the same horse - a Paint,” says Nielsen.
“I recently pulled up all the research I could find on this topic. Sure enough, I found a study done in Japan where they were looking at this issue, and those researchers came up with results almost identical to what my professor discovered. They looked at mul- tiple hair samples from the same horse and showed that the different colored hair contained different minerals. If you were using this information to assess whether your horse
was deficient or has
too much of some-
thing, what you
are really doing is
just analyzing what
color your horse is!”
Nielsen says.
NuTriTioN
Hair analysis to Determine nutritional status is Controversial
in some aspect
of nutrition. The
typical hair sample
is taken from the
mane and sent to a
lab that does hair
analysis. There are
mixed opinions
about the validity
of hair analysis for
determining the
nutrient status of horses. Some people believe that lab analysis of hair is a valid test in terms of nutrition, but many nutritionists say the results are inconsistent.
Heather Smith Thomas
Dr. Stephen Duren of Performance Horse Nutri- tion says hair analysis can’t tell you much about
your horse’s nutrition. “At best, it’s a look at the past, because hair is continually growing. What you see in a lab test may be the effects on the hair from nutrients ingested weeks or months earlier. To determine the current nutritional status of a horse, I have a lot more confidence in forage analysis, grain analysis, diet analysis and so on, coupled with a test your veterinar- ian might do on a blood sample. In most cases, blood is better than hair to test, but even a blood test is not 100% predictable or accurate because certain nutri- ents are homeostatically regulated by the body and stay at consistent levels in the blood,” he explains.
“I feel that hair analysis is a waste of time, unless you are looking for previous drug use. The hair is mainly storing things that were in the body during the time the hair was growing. Hair is not really an index of nutritional adequacy or inadequacy of the current diet,” he says. You can usually tell more by looking at the health of the hair coat than by doing a lab analysis.
“As a consulting equine nutritionist, I rely on diet analysis rather than hair samples to determine whether the horse has a proper diet. We can look at hay, pasture,
“It’s an intrigu- ing idea and would be wonderful if it worked, but it does not. The only way hair can really tell you anything about nutrition is if is dull and unhealthy look- ing versus shiny and vibrant,” he says.
If your horse has a dull, scruffy hair coat or is losing hair, you know something
Brian Nielsen, professor of exercise physiology and nutrition at Michigan State University, says different colored hairs on a horse contain varying minerals and will impact hair analysis readings.
68 SPEEDHORSE, May 2018
Dr. Stephen Duren of Performance Horse Nutrition says forage, grain and diet analysis, coupled with a blood sample,
can help determine the current nutritional status of a horse. Hair analysis will give you a look at the horse’s past dietary condition.
equine health