Hi, Carolyn -  I wouldn't mind the Heiro so much if it were just snake-oil (which is what it is). What makes me crazy are the inaccurate and highly dangerous statements on the website. High insulin is controlled by diet and exercise.  There is no supplement or drug that makes it safe for an insulin-resistant horse to go freely on pasture. The other supplements a horse needs for optimal health (vitamins, minerals, omega 3 fatty acids) are not addressed by Heiro.

What Heiro has is an impressive marketing system.

If you go behind the bumpf on the website, you will find that the recommended dose of Heiro is 9.4 grams.  This will provide only 60 milligrams of magnesium.  That is a tiny amount.  Most hays (but not all!) require anywhere from 2,000 mg to 10,000 mg (2 to 10 grams magnesium)

It will provide 2,654 IU of Vitamin E, which is 654 IU more than the average-sized horse needs; but unless you mix it with a snifter of oil, the Vitamin E won't be absorbed. 

At 9% omega 3 fatty acids, the recommended serving of Heiro will give 0.846 grams of same. Horses on pasture eat about 17 grams daily; that is 20 times more than what the Heiro supplies.  Three-quarters of a cup of ground flax seed provides 19 grams of omega 3's 

If one's hay is deficient in magnesium, then one can use magnesium oxide at the amounts needed, much more economically than Heiro..Similarly, to replace the Vitamin E and omega-3 fatty acids lost in hay, one should use actual Vitamin E, which has to be touching oil in order to be absorbed (which is why so many of us use Vitamin E capsules with soy oil in them); and add ground flax, or flax oil (2.6 tablespoons).

This means that Heiro, at best, is an expensive Vitamin E powder.

I won't even get into the "trials" of insulin levels, where the horses and ponies were fed grain for the before insulins; if you look at the "on Heiro" insulins, many of them are called normal, and they are not. 

Please excuse my rant - Heiro ads are everywhere I look, in all my horse magazines and on-line information lists. It makes me wild, because of the harm that is being done to horses by well-meaning owners who believe what is said on the website.

Thanks for listening!

Jaini (BVSc),Merlin,Maggie,Gypsy

http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ECHistory/files/Jaini%20Clougher%2C%20Smithers%20BC/