Supplements and Your Pet

Supplements are substances that are taken internally for either a nutritional or a therapeutic benefit. Dietary supplements are substances that are added to a food, usually to make it nutritionally complete and balanced. Therapeutic supplements, sometimes referred to as nutraceuticals, are food nutrients that are taken orally to provide a health benefit, either for the prevention or the treatment of disease. The most familiar examples of nutraceuticals are glucosamine, chondroitin and milk thistle.

Much of the information about the use of supplements comes from anecdotal or testimonial evidence (someone tells you about their personal experience or about another patient who showed some benefit when taking the product), sometimes from sources such as the internet. In many cases, the recommendations for use come from manufacturers or retailers, and they share little information about side effects or contraindications.

At this time, very few supplements and herbs have been subjected to scientific trials to determine their efficacy. Just because a product is natural, doesn’t mean that it is safe. All supplements should be considered medicines, and all medicines are potentially toxic if used inappropriately or given to excess.

For pharmaceutical products, governments have strict regulations relating to quality control, packaging, labeling and claims about the product’s ability to treat a particular disease. Unfortunately, these same rules do not apply to natural health products such as supplements. Due to this lack of stringency, consumers have no assurance about package contents or product strength. Not all manufacturers and distributors share the same concerns about ensuring that their products are high quality, free of contaminants, contain consistent levels of active ingredients, and retain their potency after processing. When subjected to analysis, researchers found that some bottles of herbal supplements such as echinacea do not even contain the same species of plant as listed on the label, while some probiotic products contained no active ingredients at all! This leaves it up to the consumer to become informed about the integrity and ethics of the manufacturer to provide any measure of assurance that the product is effective and unadulterated.

In the absence of regulations, consumers must become educated about what to look for with over-the-counter supplements, both for their pets and for their own personal use. The following information should be readily available on the product label:

1. The name and contact information of the manufacturer of the product.
2. Information about the package contents, ideally with some sort of a minimum analysis of the active ingredients.
3. Information about any inert or carrier substances that are present, such as milk sugar, whey, vegetable or animal proteins. 
4. For herbal products, the label should also include the Latin name of the plant, a harvest date or an expiration date, the part of the herb used and the amount of active constituents.

Pet owners often give supplements to their pets, sometimes without the knowledge of their veterinary health care team. To minimize problems for your pet, it is vital to let us, as your veterinarians, know exactly what products you are giving to your pet and how long you have been using them. With our training in animal anatomy and physiology, and our understanding of pharmacology and pathology, we may be able to predict whether there will be any interactions between certain supplements and other medications that we might prescribe. In spite of this, unexpected reactions to supplements may sometimes occur. If this does happen, you MUST report it to your veterinarian, to the person who advised you to use the supplement if it wasn’t your veterinarian, and to the manufacturer.  There are often government agencies that collect and collate this information, and it is strongly recommended that these agencies also be informed of the concerns to minimize the risks to other animals. For further information about vitamins, herbs and other supplements, contact us or go an independent website such as www.ahvma.org, www.altvetmed.org, or www.consumerlab.com.