I’m afraid we will have to disagree as to the temp in Mexico, Nevada, Texas and Colorado in the mid day at the height of summer, and if that added to the heat generated by work increases the temps to those mentioned.
And we will have also have to do the same with the statement about collagen breakdown, it does not give me enough information to make a decision about it’s effects in the real world,.
How much does it beak down?
How much of an effect does this break down effect function, How much more likely is an injury with such a break down?
Are the damaged cell replaced?
How long till they are replaced?
I would have though would be the most basic questions to answer before making a statement boots cause more damage than benefits.
We will also have to do the same again with respect to boots having the same effect on my horse when I ride in January at home in my ménage at 9.00pm in 0 digress with wind chill of even less compared to in the summer crossing over the road and galloping down the river bank at mid day in August.
If the information on this thread is enough to convince you boots are bad full stop, or they do more damage than good, that’s up to you, that certainly is not the case for me.
I would have thought that an O-level physics pupil, would know that the answer to almost every question is it depends, unless you simplify your answer or nail down the variables (Which are completly ignored in the information in this thread, beyond collagen cells are irepariably damaged beyond 42.5).
But your entitled to you opinion as much as I am to mine.
I'm sorry, but IN MY OPINION there is nothing complex or even disputable about the fact that insulation prevents heat loss. As I said, anyone doing O level physics would be aware of this, as would anyone who has ever lived in a house and drawn the curtains. There is also nothing disputable about the fact that most boots are made of materials which are good insulators. Wrap one round your arm and feel the warmth!
Equally, there is no dispute about the fact that normal healthy mammals have excellent heat regulation mechanisms. This is one of the main reasons which enables mammals to function without damage in an incredibly wide range of temperatures. Insulation being inappropriately added (or removed, in the case of cold/wet climates) clearly reduces the efficiency of these mechanisms, and/or stresses the mechanism - sometimes to the point of failure, as can also happen in extreme temperatures when the heat regulation mechanism is overwhelmed.
The efficiency of the heat regulation mechanism is the reason why local "overheating" (from whatever cause) does not frequently cause immediately-detectable damage to the tissues. However, there is definitely the
potential to cause long-term, lasting, and/or cumulative damage when highly-insulating materials hinder the normal mechanisms. Many "support boots" are made of highly-insulating materials such as neoprene, and advertise themselves on the premise that the very purpose of the boot is to keep the leg "warm and moist".
Whether or not damage will be caused by the heat produced is of course debatable. In many, perhaps even most, cases it will not - please remember the analogy of the smoker living to a ripe old age - but in some cases it is certainly likely that it will.
As already stated, some horses specifically require protection from external impact, and boots/bandages are indeed the only answer here.
But CAN non-rigid materials applied to a small fraction of the outside of the leg
actually - as stated on one particular boots' advertising - "protect(s) ... the entire musculo-skeletal system of the horse"?
Sorry, but reliance on boots for anything other than protection from external impact damage seems to me to be foolhardy - and it surely cannot be denied - especially bearing in mind that the horse is an animal much better adapted to cold/cool conditions than hot conditions - that wearing boots WILL increase the localised temperature of the legs. After all, in winter we humans, who are hot- rather than cold-climate adapted, like to wear boots t keep our legs and feet warm ...
Given that many of the claims made by the manufacturers of these boots seem to be exceedingly dramatic (viz protecting the horse's entire musculo-skeletal system) and that it is an undisputed fact that all types of mammalian collagen easily degrade when the heat-regulating mechanism has problems, personally I think that this type of boots are best avoided if at all possible.
Gelatine is collagen which has been completely denatured at a temperature of 75 deg C or over. At lower temperatures, but still above normal body temperatures, modification rather than denaturisation occurs in the form of shrinkage. This has been recognised for many years and in fact thermal modification is used routinely in the treatment of joint instabilities in human medicine, with collagen being heated by radio frequency probes under local anaesthetic to a very specific temperature which produces a shrinkage of 30%. The amount of collagen heated is fine-tuned at the time of treatment to adjust the shrinkage produced. During the healing period after the treatment, the thermally-modified collagen is very vulnerable indeed to being re-stretched to an even greater degree than before.
Now I will grant you that local heating produced by the horse wearing boots will not approach the degree of heating used in joint therapy.
However, it would not take much to raise the temperature under an insulating boot to a degree sufficient to cause damage, should there be any glitch, for whatever reason, in the horse's localised heat regulation mechanism.
Add to this the important fact that the horse's legs are ideally constructed for efficiency in the cold, and not in heat, leads me to be deeply suspicious about the usefulness or otherwise of most types of boots,never mind some of the outlandish claims made for them and already mentioned.
As you say, we are both entitled to our opinions.
