Seaweed
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SEAWEED – MODERN RESEARCH CONFIRMS TRADITIONAL USES
By Victoria Ferguson Dip.Herb.Med.
From time to time articles appear expounding the opinion that Seaweed should not be fed to horses. The main reasons given for this is that Seaweed contains too high a proportion of iodine to allow for any safe level of feeding, that it is not a natural feed for a horse or that it contains iodine “and precious little else”. None of these statements are true.
It is true however that while iodine is essential to healthy life, too much and too little are as bad as each other, so the ideal amounts of Seaweed to feed are limited by its iodine content. It is also important to note that the soil in many parts of the world is deficient in iodine.
Animals have always sought the health giving nutrients of seaweed where they have the opportunity, eating them off beaches and grazing the plants in salt water.
The grandmother of herbal medicine for animals, Juliette de Bairacli Levy was the first in the West to recommend seaweed as a nutritional supplement for animals, which she did in the 1930’s. Her suggestion was greeted with scorn from the veterinary world at the time, but opinions changed and it is now universally used and accepted as a valuable and inexpensive feed supplement for all livestock including horses.
In The Complete Herbal Handbook for Farm & Stable, Juliette de Bairacli Levy says this about iodine “This mineral is the supreme gland builder and conditioner, reducer of excess fatty tissue, safeguards the brain from toxins, removes toxic elements, promotes strong hair.”
The British equine herbalist Hilary Page Self in “A Modern Horse Herbal” published in 1996 recommends feeding good quality deep sea kelp harvested from clean waters. “ There are 46 minerals present in kelp, including iodine, potassium, sodium, selenium, calcium, magnesium, manganese, iron, cobalt, copper and a wide range of vitamins.”
Kelp is a rich source of Vitamin B12, so fits well with feeding Brewer’s Yeast, which contains all the other B group vitamins except B12.
The University of Texas Centre for Alternative Medicine Research & Centre for Health Promotion Research & Development researched the species Laminaria digitata. These are some of their findings of the benefits.
“Kelp contains abundant minerals… Kelp is a good source of bioavailable iodine, an essential mineral and major component of hormones responsible for maintaining cellular metabolic rates.” …”The alginates in kelp have a soothing and cleansing effect on the digestive tract and are known to assist in the prevention of absorption of toxic metals like mercury, cadmium, plutonium and cesium. Kelp is best recognised for its ability to protect the body against radiation. Studies have shown that alginate supplements can reduce strontium-90 absorption by as much as 83%.”
Other biological activities of kelp are anti-inflammatory, demulcent, emollient, anti-cancer, anti-tumour, antibiotic, immuno-stimulant and anti-viral.
Seven of the ten essential amino acids, the building units from which proteins are formed are found in seaweed. They are alanine, arginine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine and threonine. Seaweed also contains four non-essential amino acids.
The two major Australian brands of seaweed are both harvested from Bull Kelp (Durvillea potatorum) which grows in the clean unpolluted waters off Tasmania and the Bass Strait Islands. It is harvested commercially on King Island and in the north west of Tasmania.
The amount of iodine in Tasmanian bull kelp is approximately 700 mg per kilogram. This is the result of testing on several different batches by the National Measurement Institute of the Australian Government , on behalf of Herbal Horse.
The ratio of Tasmanian bull kelp in Herbal Horse VitalisÒ is based on a maintenance rate of 12 grams per day for an average sized horse (450 kg). This provides 7 mg of organic iodine per day. Feeding rates vary considerably the lowest being miniatures and the highest being heavy horses and high performance horses.
Toxicity level for iodine is 40 – 50 mg per day based on synthetic iodine but seaweed contains organic iodine. “The iodine found in seaweed comprises compounds of iodine amino-acids – that is, the iodine is in the same form as that associated with the thyroid gland. The thyroid does not have to process it or change it; it goes straight into the stomach and the bloodstream, and homes in on the thyroid where it is available for use immediately.” (1)
The bioavailability of nutritional supplements is an important factor – those in natural form are vastly superior to those in synthetic form.
(1) Dorothy Hall’s Herbal Medicine
© Victoria Ferguson 2010
