Gain A Competitive Edge and Prevent Illness Naturally with... Grape Power

By Dan Moore, The Natural Vet®

Prescription Drugs?

Until recently most doctors and even today many veterinarians simply don’t believe that the medicines used by native American medicine men, our great grandmothers, or even our grandmothers were of any value. Designer prescription drugs in some minds are the only cure for all the ills of animal or man. Times are changing and every day it becomes more evident that most drugs only relieve symptoms and often bring terrible side effects. Today I find myself digging through ancient medical books seeking remedies that don’t have side effects and looking for answers that were long forgotten. It is amazing what I have continued to find. Some truly long forgotten others even covered up!

Pro-anthy-cya-what?

One exceptional discovery was made by a French doctor, Professor Jacques Masquelier, dean of the medical school at the University of Bordeaux in France. He had read of a story written by a famous French explorer, Jacques Cartier and his crew who had been saved from scurvy with a tea brewed by an Canadian-Indian medicine man over 450 years ago. The tea was made from the needles and bark from a special pine tree. What professor Masquelier found when he studied this tree was that it contained a very potent bioflavanoid that he called proanthocyanidin. This was the most incredible antioxidant known to date. It was fifty time more powerful than Vitamin E and twenty times stronger that Vitamin C. Today these same proanthocyanidins have also been found in grapes - a readily available, everyday food. All the components of grapes, including the skin, the seeds or extracts thereof, are potent antioxidants. Also found in grapes are polyphenols and catechins and even gallic acids, all with powerful biological benefits, easily absorbed and free of any side effects.

How can your horse benefit?

It is almost common knowledge now that free radicals are the cause of most of the ailments associated with age. Antioxidants destroy free radicals. When a horse is young, or when you are young for that matter, its body produces an enzyme called super oxide dismutase (SOD) which destroys most of the free radicals. As a horse gets older, the production of SOD slows. The older they get, the less SOD they have, the more vulnerable to damage they are.

Our horses are bombarded daily with free radicals from polluted air, fat and preservatives in feed, pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, hormones - you name it. Even water has chlorine, trihalomethanes, alum, lime, and potassium permanganate, to name a few.

Free radicals destroy cells. A war is constantly raging inside your horse’s body. Free radicals - unstable molecules - are roaming inside with one mission: to invade and attack, destroying healthy cells, making the body vulnerable to disease.

The best analogy I have heard is like bouncing a super ball in a china shop. Something, in this case a lot of cells, is bound to break. Without an antioxidant, cells oxidize - a process very similar to metal rusting. This oxidation, or rust if you prefer, blocks arteries, scars joints, and even alters DNA, making your horse more vulnerable to such maladies as cancer, fatigue, and arthritis. The malfunctions are limitless. Not good if you are planning to win a race or have your horse around for awhile.

The Solution

The solution, without a doubt, is supplementation of your horse’s diet with antioxidants. Left unchecked, free radicals will damage the basic structure of cells just like a sliced apple browns in the air - a chemical change showing decomposition - cells are oxidizing at a rapid pace in the presence of free radicals. Antioxidants slow the pace giving your horse a competitive edge and longevity needed to perfect performance.

Many herbs contain antioxidants. Our product, Health Check daily antioxidant, is a unique blend of many herbs. You may be familiar with many of them like garlic, Siberian ginseng, and yucca. Perhaps you take them yourself. I do and so do most of my friends. We have been using a comparable human product for over 6 years now and I can’t tell you the miracles we’ve seen. I was spending over 300 dollars per month using this human product on our own horse. Very few clients were willing to spend that so I had to find a way to get the same results for less expense. The answer I found was grapes. As I already explained, grapes contain the most powerful antioxidant known. It’s economical, readily accessible, and horses love it. We balance the grape with other beneficial herbs and have been overwhelmed with the results.

Grape Seed Extract

Grape seed extract has been proven to benefit many parts of the body. J.E. Grogain, B. Ed. Certified Nutritionist in an article titled Grape Seed Extract, Its Properties and Benefits, states that GSE maintains and strengthens the integrity of tendons, ligaments, muscles, as well as bones. It does this by strengthening collagen fibers, the cement that holds all tissue together even blood vessel walls, skin and lungs. He states that by preventing collagen breakdown and increasing production, GSE protects, especially during periods of inflammation and infection. By acting as a powerful anti - inflammatory, even swelling of injured tissue can be minimized reducing pain and speeding up the healing process. Do you know any horses that could benefit? He also states that GSE can prevent and relieve excessive fluid buildup (edema) especially in the lymph glands. This aids in clearing waste material from the site injury or infection. As a big benefit, he states that GSE can benefit the synovial fluid in joints as well.

In our Joint Check we added glucosamine products (6,000 mgs per ounce) to help the joints and connective tissue even more. Although a topic for another article, these glucosamine products undisputedly help rebuild, restore and lubricate joints. Any aged arthritic or performance horse needs Joint Check. All others need Health Check.

Health Check is a great source of antioxidants.

A r e Y o u R e a d y ?

Arecent article in USA Today describes a revolution in the pharmaceutical industry. More specifically, that the focus now shifts from merely treating symptoms to actually stopping disease entirely or preventing it in the first place. Perhaps this is revolutionary to the drug industry but the complementary/alternative movement has spoken prevention and even “cure” for decades. In fact it has always been their goal.

In people the pharmaceutical method of treating only the symptoms with prescription drugs has failed against big killers such as cancer, alzheimers and heart disease. They may help alleviate the pain or relieve symptoms somewhat but they don’t fix the root of the problem. Sometimes, even toxic side effects from drugs can force a patient to discontinue medication and cause symptoms to return. Some drugs may also produce their own set of symptoms requiring more medication and higher and higher doses. Anti-inflammatories and steroids in horses are notorious for this.

On our farm we have about thirty Rocky Mountain horses. We have outside mares coming and going for breeding, we are either showing or trail riding every weekend. The point is, we have a lot of potential exposure for disease. We feed every horse Health Check or Joint Check every day. We don’t even vaccinate and we don’t have sick horses.

Dr. Richard Cutlar, former director of the government’s anti-aging research department at the National Institute of Health said, “The amount of antioxidants that you maintain in your body is directly proportional to how long you live!” Health Check retails for .66 a day. That expense is less than what a soda pop costs. I know my horse is worth it. How about yours?

In alternative medicine, addressing the cause of the problem has always been the focus. Illness suggests that the body is “out of balance”. Alternative medicine uses natural nutrients and methods and assists in healing with the idea that the body has a tendency to heal itself or self-correct. With the imbalance corrected, the symtoms will disappear on their own or give us new symptoms to gradually guide us further towards the desired state of health.

Dr. Robert Atkins points out in his book, Vita Nutrients (Simon and Schuster, 1998) drugs are “blockers” but nutrients like vitamins and herbs are “enablers”. They allow the body to funtion smoothly by easing the natural process. They work best gradually over the long-term. Knowing this, who wouldn’t choose an “enabler” (i.e. a nutrient or herb) over a “blocker” also known as a drug?

Nutrients and herbs keep us and our animal friends healthy. It goes without saying that healthy is a win-win situation. As we all know an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.