Can You Trust the Horse Health Advice You’re Reading Online?

Horse owners have access to more health information than ever before.

Research papers get shared on Facebook. Supplement companies cite studies to support their products. Podcasts, blogs, TikToks, and YouTube videos offer explanations for everything from ulcers and inflammation to metabolic disease and poor performance.

And almost everyone has advice. But often the answers are as diverse as the person supplying them.

So how are you supposed to know what to follow?

Who Is Giving You the Information Matters

There’s a part of this conversation that I think we need to become much more comfortable talking about in the horse world: credentials matter.

That doesn’t mean someone needs a particular degree to have valuable knowledge or experience. There are incredibly knowledgeable horse people who have spent decades developing expertise in their field.

But experience, education, certification, licensure, and an academic degree are not the same thing.

And online, those distinctions can become very blurry.

A certificate from a weekend course can sit beside a professional certification that required extensive education and examination. A credential issued by a private organization can sound remarkably similar to an academic qualification from an accredited institution. Titles can imply a level of education, clinical training, or professional oversight that may not actually exist.

For instance, recently I heard a professional claiming a doctorate in traditional naturopathy. To the average person, that could easily sound like this individual holds an accredited naturopathic medical degree and is licensed to practice medicine.

That was not the case.

The credential came from a 36–48-month, non-accredited program that does not lead to professional licensure. There is no recognized accreditation process assuring that the education meets the standards required of a licensed naturopathic physician. The problem is that the word “doctorate” carries a meaning for most consumers that this credential may not represent. A recognized doctoral degree is awarded through an appropriately accredited institution and requires advanced academic study meeting established standards.

To drive this point home even more, I recently had someone ask me how they could get a “certificate” in equine acupuncture and whether they needed a degree first.

This is exactly the problem.

Acupuncture isn't something I learned through a certificate program. My acupuncture education required graduate-level professional training after completing my bachelor's degree, followed by board exams and licensure. The equine specialization came on top of that foundation. The only other way to do what I do is to be a veterinarian.

For the average horse owner scrolling through social media, it can be extremely difficult to know what someone’s credentials actually represent and, therefore, how much weight to give their advice.

If people don't know the difference, how are they supposed to evaluate the authority of the person giving them health advice?

This is the fundamental lack of knowledge out there.

But credentials alone aren't the answer either.

Highly educated professionals can make mistakes. I can make mistakes. Scientific understanding changes as new evidence emerges. And even someone with excellent training can misinterpret, oversimplify, or overstate research.

Which brings us to another phrase I think horse owners need to become much more critical of:

“Research Says” Isn’t the End of the Conversation

We’ve become accustomed to treating research as a kind of final answer.

Someone says, “There’s a study showing…” and suddenly the conversation seems settled.

But the existence of a study doesn’t automatically tell us whether the conclusion being drawn from it is justified.

What was actually studied? Who or what was studied? How many subjects were included? What outcome was measured? How large was the effect? Does that effect actually matter clinically? And perhaps most importantly for horse owners, does the research actually apply to your horse?

Those questions can dramatically change the meaning of a headline that simply says, “Research shows…”

The Problem Isn’t Just Bad Information

There is certainly bad information about horse health online.

But there’s another problem that I think is much more interesting: good information can be interpreted badly.

Understanding research requires more than finding a paper that contains the right words. It requires enough foundational knowledge to understand physiology, research methodology, limitations, context, and whether the conclusions being presented actually follow from the evidence.

Without that foundation, information can end up not quite right.

Not necessarily completely false. Not necessarily intentionally misleading. Just distorted enough that an important piece of context gets lost.

And that is why we are talking this month on the podcast about research.

Evidence-Informed Thinking Requires More Than Finding a Study

I believe strongly in research. It is one of the most valuable tools we have for understanding health and disease.

But it is still a tool.

Clinical experience is a tool. Traditional knowledge is a tool. Understanding physiology is a tool. Observing the individual horse in front of you is a tool.

Good decision-making comes from understanding what each source of information can tell us, where its limitations are, and how those pieces fit together.

That becomes especially important in integrative medicine, where we may be evaluating conventional treatments, nutrition, supplements, herbs, bodywork, acupuncture, management practices, and other approaches that don't all have the same quantity or type of research behind them.

The question shouldn't simply be:

“Is there research?”

A much better question is:

“What does the available evidence actually allow me to conclude?”

Learning to Ask Better Questions

You don't need to become a research scientist to become much better at evaluating horse-health information.

You do, however, need to know what questions to ask.

That’s why I created a framework of 12 questions you can use when evaluating research and health claims.

They’re designed to help you slow down that moment between hearing “research shows…” and deciding “therefore, this must be true.”

In Part One of this two-part Hale & Hearty Horses Podcast series, I walk through the first six questions and explain how I use them to think critically about the information we encounter every day as horse owners and practitioners.

Because the goal isn't to distrust everything you hear.

It’s to become much better at deciding what deserves your trust.

Listen to Part One of the Hale & Hearty Horses Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0EP50A9voLf988NosnvZ4R?si=MtZXypBkTNa56UzgqRvKDA