Which ones have you tried and did they make a difference for your horse?
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Metabarol really peeled the weight off my Morgan mare. I’ve got two on it now, her and my driving pony and they’re both looking svelte. It doesn’t hurt that it helps the pony’s creaky hocks too.
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I have a friend who used Reservatrol on her very arthritic horse and said it made a huge difference. I haven’t tried it yet. One thing to be aware of - it apparently has a strong (and unpleasant) flavor, so for picky eaters, it could be an issue. I haven’t tried it for that reason!
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Oh, boy, if the stuff has an unpleasant taste, my Figs won’t touch it! Sure like to try him on it, though…
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Equithrive also comes in molasses flavour, and is available in the US in either pelleted or powdered form. I have a number of horses on original Equithrive powder (no flavouring), and they all eat it happily top-dressed on their ration balancer pellets. I have seen excellent responses in horses with confirmed joint issues, so now I’m not using Legend (we can’t get Adequan reliably in Canada) or Pentosan.
I add powdered Japanese Knotweed , the main source of resveratrol in most supplements, by itself . I get mine from Harmany Equine. My horse gobbles it up, along with his other supplements that I add as single ingredients, to his feed , all wetted down. He is an 1800 pd draft cross and I have found that adding single ingredients for his weight is much more cost effective .
I posted a question on this forum a while ago about resveratrol and did not get much response, but I do see it being added more and more in packaged supplements.
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I used Equithrive on a WB mare a few years ago, on the advice of my vet. I do think it helped her (lead changes were more fluid, etc). I did switch over to the Smartpak version, since my barn discouraged container/measuring supplements, and I don’t remember noticing a difference in her performance when I switched from the equithrive to SP. When I stopped showing her, I discontinued the supplement, as it was fairly pricey.
Note: my mare is about average on the ‘picky eater’ scale, and I had no issues with her leaving any of the resveratrol supplements behind.
From what I’ve read, the bioavailability of oral resveratrol is still one of the issues that can interfere with its effectiveness for osteoarthritis.
There is a clinical study to support Equithrive, which was randomized and blinded and did show reasonable evidence for a therapeutic effect in a somewhat small-n trial. Equithrive’s marketing materials say that their product is refined and microencapsulated, which could potentially make it very different from feeding straight up Japanese Knotwood. At this stage in the development of resveratrol supplements I’d definitely not be willing to generalize from a study of one specific product to anything that contains that ingredient.
I don’t know if there are other equine trials slated, but it looks like there are some human trials of oral resveratrol for osteoarthritis in the works. I’m usually leery of substances that get billed as panaceas (resveratrol is promoted for cancer prevention, cardiovascular disease prevention, and metabolic health in addition to its osteoarthritis link), but the testimonials I’ve heard about Equithrive and the limited evidence that’s out there to date about chondroprotective and anti-inflammatory effects of resveratrol do make me curious about whether it could play a role in treating early onset human osteoarthritis – for human or horse, limiting lifelong reliance on NSAIDs would be nice!
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