There could be reasons for a PharmaCo NOT to push a “nutritional solution” with a big high-profile campaign. One obvious one is that, since the individual ingredients are presumably all licensed for human consumption as “food supplements”, it would be easy for any vitamin company to concoct an imitation version and flog it as a dietary supplement. Sort of a “super-version” of the OTC vs branded argument. So the company might be better sticking to a discreet pitch just to the medical profession, backed by trial evidence but consciously low key.

This is an interesting angle on the argument you often hear on the Alt.Medicine circuit that “PharmaCos won’t research natural and nutritional remedies because they can’t make any money out of them”. One obvious reason being that any remedy of this kind they did come up with would instantly be copied and flogged by hundreds of other people as a “nutritional supplement”. I am no great friend of the PharmaCos, but they are on a bit of a hiding to nothing with this kind of thing.

A well-known example of this is the search for drugs derived from resveratrol, of which SRT1720 is the best-known example. It will take a long time to get SRT1720 through all the trials, if it makes it at all. Meanwhile, sales of resveratrol supplements are rocketing. The Pharmas with resveratrol derivatives in the works derivatives must surely have wondered about simply marketing the compounds as “nutritional wonder supplements”, which would just require safety tests and no need to demonstrate any kind of efficacy.

“Presumably if this had the weight of Big Pharma behind it we would be groaning under a pile of trials and assorted evidence.”

It IS “Big Pharma”, Euan. I-Caps are made by Alcon Laboratories – “the world’s largest eye-care company” as it says on the I-caps website, 2006 revenue US $ 5 Billion, approx 7000 US Employees and approx the same outside the US. Not all that different in size to the largest biotechs, like Genentech. And last I heard, Novartis were buying 25% of Alcon for US $ 11 Billion, with a view to taking over the whole company.

There may be reasons why there aren’t more large-scale trials of the supplements, but lack of dosh seems highly unlikely to be one of them.

Michael – any conflicts of interest you would like to declare? I have left your post up in the interests of keeping an open forum and others may wish to explore the claims further.

It is believed that the visual system requires up to 25% of the nutrients we take into our bodies in order to stay healthy. Impaired circulation and/or poor absorption of nutrients can significantly contribute to eye disease.

There is a great deal of peer review research now showing the vision can be preserved through a proper diet and specific nutritional supplementation.

Essential nutrients include lutein, zeaxanthin, omega-3 fatty acids, taurine, gingko biloba, lycopene, vitamin A, E, zinc, copper, selenium for example, that can help both prevent the onset of eye disease such as macular degeneration as well as help preserve vision for those with macular degeneration.

For more information and specific research studies by eye condition on nutrition and vision, go to http://www.naturaleyecare.com

4000 patients with impecable double masking and photo assessment of progression, supervised by the Wilmer eye institute, probably the best eye dept in the USA.

Interestingly it was a trial of hypersupplementation, with deliberately 5 x RDa doses, and the patients already had higher serum vitamins than the USA average. They were not malnourished.

The study is being rerun as AREDS 2 to assess the role of Leuteins etc. The formulation used in AREDS was “ocuvite preservision” marketed as preservision in the UK.

I share your scepticism about a lot of food supplements but for once there is substantial evidence for the use of these in ARMD. The number needed to treat is not out of order compared with a lot of other interventions such as mild systemic hypertension, and may well beat Lucentis in cost effectiveness.

If this was another drug then there would be much less controversery, but supplements do have the whiff of quakery.

Leslie Degner, RN, BSN
http://www.webrn-maculardegeneration.com

So, do we prescribe ICAPS or ask the elderly to chew on raw Kale? Or both?

£10.55 for 60 tabs (2 tabs daily) from my nearest chemist (I’ve just asked them). I can see them for £8.55 online.

Interestingly my computer system (System One) will let me prescribe it although I have not done so yet.

Submitted on 2008/12/04 at 9:40pm

Absolutely

And what is worse, the buggers who make this stuff have been handing out freebies in eye clinics

http://nhsblogdoc.blogspot.com/2007/06/crippen-diaries-2007-24.html

John
nhsblogdoc@gmail.com
Dr John Crippen
http://nhsblogdoc.blogspot.com/