27/10/2025
There is a very dangerous and misleading statement being made on the internet.
Quote
“Laminitis is not caused by diet”
I urge you to use caution if you choose to believe this.
I am a student of the hoof for the past 10 years and I am mentored by Prof Chris Pollitt, the pioneer who discovered the insulin relationship to laminitis. I beg you to be very careful with what you hear out there being touted by lay people.
Horses will die unnecessary painful excruciating deaths if you follow this misinformation.
By ignoring the well understood relationship between high insulin and laminitis you may be inclined to turn out your ponies onto the rich grass. Apparently it’s said that a balanced trim is the key- which I do not totally agree with.
Once the genie is out of the bottle and the laminae are failing due to high insulin stretching and snapping the laminar attachments of bone to inner hoof wall then good luck getting it back.
Is it worth the risk?
Have you seen laminitis appear in the spring when the grass starts to grow. Or after a long hot summer, when the rains start, and boom, laminitis rears its head. Why is that?
Why do many horses suffer laminitis after getting into the grain shed and gourged themselves? Is it the grain or the trim?
Trimming is important, but you cannot trim your way into preventing or treating laminitis without looking far deeper into the cause. Diet and insulin go hand in hand.
Do you think that these lay people that come up with such crazy and dangerous statements that are said as if they are fact have actually been in the lab and done any research?
These are frightening times my friends.
Anyone can say anything and mislead us.
Maybe it is intentional, it just feeds the algorithm and everyone comments and argues and shouts and the ones dropping bombshell dangerous statements just rub their hands in glee at the carnage.
It’s sick.
It’s dangerous
I follow the science.
This is my position statement.
