The Power of Green-Lipped Mussel (+ choosing the best supplement option)

Supplements can play a vital role in maintaining health and treating or disease BUT choosing the best supplement (one that is safe and actually works!) can be fraught with difficulty.

In this listener question we answer if green-lipped muscle extract is the ultimate supplement for dogs (and cats) with arthritis and dive into some top tips for choosing any supplement for your furry family...

Head over to the full show notes for more information and all the links from today's episode.

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Transcript

Welcome to the call The Vet Show, the podcast that helps pet parents understand and optimize the health of their furry family so they can live the full and happy life you want for them. And here's your host, veterinarian Dr. Alex Avery.

Hello. Kia ora. Welcome to another episode of The Call, the Vet Show. Today I am bringing you an answer to a question that a listener sent in for me that is going to be super relevant to you no matter whether you've got a dog or a cat or what their health is. We're talking about supplements and supplementation, which is such a common common question and common cause of concern for people and yet causes a lot of problems as well as benefits. But before we get into that, I hope that you're doing well over in my part of the world, the the north island of New Zealand is has been absolutely hammered by a tropical cyclone. There's been a huge amount of damage. People have lost their lives and people are really struggling. Thankfully, in the South Island, which is where I am, we have not been affected at all. But certainly my my heart goes out to all of the people in the North Island who have been affected as well as that. You know, Turkey, there's been a massive earthquake there and in Syria as well on the border, that has had a huge effect on people. And actually you may not know.

So the videos that I produce on YouTube, I've actually just started working with a video editor to allow me to free up a little bit more time to actually be producing some more videos again. And he is based in that part of the world in Turkey. And yeah, thankfully has has been, you know, as safe and safe and well. But, you know, there's a lot of people out there doing doing it tough and yeah my thoughts are with all of them today though as I said, we've got a question that has been sent to him by Jodie asking about supplementation for her dog coach. And if you have a question for me for the show, then I will leave a link to that in the show notes as well. I'm kind of working on a way, trying to work on a way that I can make kind of the answering of individual questions sustainable and not get overwhelmed with a barrage of questions as well. So check out that link in the show notes. If you're interested in having your question answered on an upcoming episode. But for now, here's Jodie.

And now on with the show.

Speaker1: Hello, This is Jodie. With a five year old mix called Coach. Thank you, Doctor. I just finished listening to your podcast on Tripods. And my question is about the GLME I think it's called, green-lipped mussel extraction. And I wonder because there have been so many products and from what I read is biolane by Aroma Company is the only one that has been proven scientifically effective for canine animals, which is pets. So I just wonder which products that you would recommend. Because biolane is like maybe an ingredient that a product could use. So I can only buy products instead of the ingredients. And I also search for antinol anything. No. And and, you know, use the PCSO. So something like that. And it's actually another green-lipped muscle. It's called deepremol. Yeah. And so thank you for your recommendation. Thank you very much. Have a nice day. 

Hi, Jodie. Thanks for getting in touch with such a great question. And hopefully we can get coach on a supplement that's going to work for work for him and really make a difference in his life for the long term. So this is a fantastic question. I think not just because of the nature of green lit muscle and supplementation for arthritis and arthritis prevention ideally as well, but also some considerations when it comes to just general supplementation. No matter what condition your pet has or what you're trying to optimize their health towards. So if we think about arthritis supplementation, I think the very first thing we need to consider is our omega three fatty acids. So they are the kind of original and best, if you like. They're the first supplement that was found to have a significant difference in the improvement of comfort. Improvement of pain levels that are arthritic dogs were suffering from. So we really need to start with that as a baseline. Now, our omega three supplementation should come from a marine based source. So a kind of a fish oil, if you like, or green muscle in this case, or maybe a marine based algae, because that type of omega three fatty acid is something that is readily available for our dogs to use certain other types of omega three fatty acids. So I'm thinking here of our plant based ones like flaxseed may have a slight benefit, although it will have a slight benefit, but we're not getting the full value of that supplementation.

It's not going to do as good a job. So we need to start with a marine source and be thinking about our omega three fatty acids. Now, green muscle is a big part of kind of the supplementation industry in the world, part of the world that I live in in New Zealand. So it's a really big industry over here. And X gets exported to kind of all over the world. And and as you say, many of the companies are actually New Zealand based or certainly the the ingredient companies that will then be used by different companies all over the world to produce their products. So green that mussel extract which is this PC Aso compound has got a number of other different things in there. So it's a whole different kind of collection of free fatty acids of esters of lipids and various other different molecules that have again been shown to have an anti-inflammatory effect. And actually there are studies for this pcso that show that it is superior in people, certainly to our standard fish oil. So I think that yes, we should be looking at something like a green mussel if it is affordable to us. Because the other thing is that a lot of these supplements actually the cost can be quite significant, especially if we're dealing talking about a big dog that's going to be supplemented every single day of its life on an indefinite basis.

And those costs can really add up, which can make them unaffordable or out of reach of some of us, understandably so. Now, as for which products I would recommend, you know, the availability of products varies across the world. So they might not be available where you are. I think the general rule, if you like excuse me, the rule of thumb when we're looking at supplements, is that because the supplement industry is really poorly regulated and there are a lot of companies out there producing supplements with really poor quality control that may actually have very little to none of the active ingredient that they claim to have in them. It really is important to be looking for a well known, ideally large, reputable brand. Now, there may be exceptions to that, and I'm sure there are some exceptions to that and some smaller companies that are producing wonderful quality products. But as a general rule, we want to be looking for reliability. And one way we can do that is actually be asking these companies what their. Quality controls are. Do they have any independent analysis of their product to not just check what is what actually is in them in terms of active ingredient? And is that as they claim, but also what isn't in them? So are they testing for heavy metals? That's going to be an a special especially important one in some of our fish products.

But is there any contamination? Is there any kind of toxins actually in there that that may actually be detrimental to your pet's health? So not just making sure that the supplement that we're giving is going to be as effective as possible, but actually, it's going to be as safe as possible as well. Now, Antonov, which is this PC, so supplement is actually one that I use and recommend to my clients in the flesh. So it's definitely one that I would encourage you to check out. Are the ones something like Bo il mobilize or cinna. Quinn EFA is another one, which is I believe a krill oil supplement. So not a greenlit muscle product but a krill oil one. They are all good quality supplements in my mind, produced by companies that are reputable and doing some very good work. And I'll leave links to these products as well as a few others for your consideration over in the show notes. So check those out If you're interested in purchasing any of those, of course, you can always check in with your vets and see what they would recommend, you know, depending on available availability of products in your part of the world.

And then I guess the last point, the point that I want to talk with you today about is in terms of supplementation, I think you just need to make a decision. If you decide that supplementing is something that is right for your your dog, your cat, whatever condition they're suffering from, you know, there is going to be a huge range of different options that you could choose from. Yes, absolutely. It's right to do some research, much like Jodi has and reaching out to me. But once you've done that initial research, we need to take action. It's very easy to be kind of paralyzed by the wealth of options in front of us and actually never make a decision or constantly be questioning whether we've made the right decision. But what I would say is when you find a supplement that that seems to be good, seems to be a good quality, a reputable company, start your pet on it and then move on to the next thing that you can be doing. Because with something like arthritis, for example, we need to be thinking about weight management, about other nutritional concerns, environmental modification, to make their environment as as easy and low impact as possible. Complementary therapies, painkillers, you know, there's a whole wealth of different things that we can be doing. And it's easy to be distracted from all of these other potential options in front of us if we're just focusing on choosing the the supposed optimal supplement.

Because the other thing is that these supplements, you know, there's very often studies done that look into whether they are beneficial to a dog when compared to a placebo. So two groups of dogs, for example, one is given the supplement and one is given a sugar pill. And to prove that the supplement actually has a beneficial effect for that group as a whole. But it is very seldom that two different types of supplement are compared against each other. So for example, the supplements I've mentioned are Antonoff versus are cynic wine for at least I'm not aware of there being any direct comparison between them, but that's an example. And so there's no real way of us knowing is one better than the other? There probably is. But in the real world, is this going to make much difference? Probably not. When we can factor in all of the other things that we could be doing that are definitely going to make more of a difference. So I guess the bottom line here is, yes, have a look at which supplement is best. You're likely going to narrow down your range of options. Just choose one and move on and don't revisit that until you've got everything else under control. And then maybe we can reassess whether that is the best for your particular pet.

Helping your pet live the happy, healthy life they deserve.

So supplements for all different kinds of conditions is something that we've kind of revisited a number of different times on the podcast. And over in the show notes. I'm going to leave links to some of those other episodes that talk about a lot of potential pitfalls that you need to avoid and are quite easy to avoid if you're aware of them, but they're actually very easy to be caught up in. If you know you're you're not pre warned, but also how to choose the best product for your pet. So make sure you head over to the show notes and which will contain links to all of those those episodes. But for now, that's me for this episode. If you've enjoyed it, I'd love it if you could. Maybe leave a testimonial for for the show over at our pets health dot com slash review or a review on whichever podcast app you're listening to this on. It really helps other people realize that this is a podcast that's worth their time listening to, and it helps me with my mission of reaching pet parents across the world and helping pets live their best lives no matter where they are and no matter what resources are available to them. So thank you in advance for that. It really means the world when I see your reviews and testimonials and until the next episode, I'm veterinarian Dr. Alex. This is the call of show because they're family.

That's it for this episode of The Call the Vet show. Be sure to visit, call the vet dot org to join the conversation, access the show notes and discover our fantastic bonus content. We'll see you next time.