This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Knowledge & Support Community

It sounds like you're doing plenty of research. Just wanted to point out that there are multiple considerations with zinc and it is possible to do more harm than good. Individuals who test low in zinc may have reason to consider it. I like the PUFAs because there is a lot of upside without much downside (as long as A & D don't go to high or E too low).

Have you done any research on inosine? It looks promising. I am 10 years since diagnosis and am starting to see symptoms increase. Interested in augmenting copaxone with diet (Swank) and exercise.

yep it has turned into my life's work.

I have specific targets sorted out for a bunch of things including zinc, and what it needs to be balanced with, so all good on that front.

pufas I like too. esp the nuance re mental health. ie in schizophrenia it was noted at one time that patients did not experience niacin flush. couple decades later somebody realized that the absent niacin flush reaction was due to fatty acid deficiency. good to know

as for inosine, at one time, for several years my uric acid tested low - as it turned out, bc I was zinc deficient. when I corrected zinc deficiency, uric acid shot up into the health controls range for the first time in years. I was interested in inosine before I stumbled on the zinc solution. now in hindsight I think inosine misses the point.

personally I am 7 yrs in and going strong so far. fingers crossed that the good times continue

Inosine is about more than just uric acid levels. It promotes axon regeneration and is neuroprotective. It actually offers some hope for restoring lost function and made lesion disappear in 2 patients during phase I trials.

post some studies if you can. I wouldn't mind checking them out. i would be asking 1) where does inosine come from when naturally synthesized (possible starting point http://humancyc.org/HUMAN/NEW-IMAGE?typ ... =PWY-56952), 2) what nutrients are involved, and 3) if said nutrients are known to be depleted in ms patients, does inosine treatment mask an underlying nutrient deficiency? possibly missing diverse other pathways in which said nutrient would (optimally) be involved?

Jimpsull wrote:- too much vitamin D. At 8000 IU per day (+ the vit D in your fish oil) it will over-accumulate in your system

Most omega-3 fish oil supplements do not have vitamin D3 in them. It is cod liver oil that has vitamin D3 in it.

very true, NHE - good point

Conclusions. Our data suggest that raising serum UA levels by the oral administration of inosine treatment may benefit patients with MS. Improvements in EDSS and a reduction in lesion activity were noted. Studies in a larger cohort are indicated and will help to elucidate the mechanistic effects of the treatment.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3189001/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... figure/f1/

however, it treats a symptom of zinc deficiency as opposed to the underlying cause. while ua is beneficial in its own right, zinc is fundamental to hundreds if not thousands of processes in the human body.

I am a little perplexed at your insistence that zinc deficiency is a root cause when there is as much evidence pointing to zinc supplementations potential to exacerbate MS as there is pointing to its benefits.

You're a smart guy with time to do your research. As for me, I'm steering clear of zinc supplements until lab work shows I'm zinc deficient. Inosine, on the other hand, shows promise in phase ii clinical trials with potential to actually reverse damage that's already been done. If I add anything to my vitamin d, PUFAs, circumin, and copaxone it will most likely be inosine.

heya, anything is dangerous in excess. luckily I don't take over 450mg of zinc per day, equivalent for me to the daily amount that was harmful in EAE mice. it's about finding the sweet spot.

can you link me up to the studies that show zinc excess is a problem for ms patients? i wouldn't mind checking that out. or are you still referring to the 2004 book?

an fyi for when you get the zinc lab work done..
http://www.thisisms.com/forum/regimens- ... c2489.html
"The first thing to understand when beginning nutrition investigations, is the unfortunate language of the lab. Specifically, the term 'normal'.
As described briefly above, the 'normal' range is often quite a broad range which in many cases includes both sick and healthy people.
There is a much smaller range within the normal range that can be described as 'optimal'.
For example, at one lab i'm aware of, the normal range for zinc is given as 10-20 umol/L. at an infectious disease clinic, the normal range for tests done there was 9-14 umol/L. the WHO's reference range is 11.5-18.5 umol/L. ms patients average in the low teens. healthy controls average in the high teens, with high end healthy levels sometimes over 20. an example of toxicity in research involved levels over 36."

also fyi:
"zinc: aim for 18.2-18.4 umol/L. (120 ug/dL) i have not firmly established this upper limit but i would say go no higher than 20 umol/L. the test is just serum zinc.
at my first zinc test my level was 8.6 umol/L. [update: found a study of children with healthy controls averaging 20.5 umol/L serum zinc]

copper: aim for 100-114 ug/dL or 17.3-18 umol/L. NB zinc supplementation should always be balanced with copper. detailed copper info here http://www.thisisms.com/forum/general-d ... ml#p188525

magnesium: aim for .91 mmol/L. (or 2.2-2.3 mg/dL). 'normal' range in SI units is 0.70-1.10 mmol/L. research says anyone below 0.90 should be supplementing. some sources say minimum 0.95 mmol/L. i even found one study where the healthy controls average was 1.1. the test is just serum magnesium (see below)."

this was the study that made me realize the zinc-uric acid connection:

Effect of low zinc intake and oral contraceptive agents on nitrogen utilization and clinical findings in young women
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/107/12/2219.full.pdf
"Use of contraceptive drugs appeared to influence the response of blood parameters to zinc depletion. ... Serum uric acid ... changed significantly in both groups [with or without OCA]."

found this too:

Longitudinal study of serum zinc and copper levels in hemodialysis patients and their relation to biochemical markers
http://link.springer.com/article/10.138 ... %3A3%3A209
"The regression analysis done among different biochemical and nutritional indexes with serum zinc levels showed the existence of significant linear relationships for uric acid"

Jimmy, yes - I was referring to the 2004 book. I don't see the connection between your last two links and the inosine studies. One article (I only accessed the abstract) was about patients with renal failure. Causality wasn't established (although correlation between low serum zinc and unhealthy kidney was observed). The second showed that a diet with no zinc combined with female birth control pill prevented protein synthesis required to maintain healthy uric acid (among other things).

In the inosine studies, protein synthesis could (and did) occur (without zinc supplementation). This seems to indicate that the extremes induced by renal failure and/or a zero-zinc diet + birth control are the exception and not the rule.

Further, as previously mentioned, inosine is about more than just UA (stimulates axon growth, neuroprotective, resores lost function after brain injury). Zinc on the other and has the potential to stimulate the immune system which can lead to harm in ms patients.

Anyhow, there is no law saying we all have to agree on everything. Thanks for all the research you do. You clearly care about our community and are putting a lot of good stuff out there for us to consider. Regards - Jim

ok I've already been over the issues with the 2004 book. you'd have to take what, 30x the rda of zinc to get the harmful effects noted in the EAE murine study referenced.

anyway. you had specifically mentioned inosine's effect on UA

Our data suggest that raising serum UA levels by the oral administration of inosine treatment may benefit patients with MS.

so the studies are just underlining that zinc (which is generally low in ms patients) normalizes UA, plus is involved in hundreds/thousands of other processes;

the first study speaks to the correlation between serum zinc and serum uric acid levels. everyone's uric acid levels dropped when their diet had insufficient zinc. the study makes clear that uric acid drops in healthy controls during zinc deficiency. and the OCA make it worse.

yes the second study is looking at hemodialysis patients. so it seems that regardless of health or disease, the finding of poor uric acid when zinc is low is duplicated.
a few yrs ago, based on the first study's info, I decided to see if fixing my zinc deficiency had normalized my chronically low uric acid. it had. after years of trying and failing to increase my uric acid levels with diet. qed

granted inosine is not just about its correlation with uric acid status. but whenever a therapy like inosine is used in place of natural biosynthesis, imho it's just a crutch for broken biochemistry. seems irresponsible not to fix it when all you need is a nutrient.

http://www.neurologycare.net/

The effects of zinc supplements are not well understood. Due to possible harmful effects and the lack of proven therapeutic effect, it may be reasonable for those with MS to avoid zinc supplements. If supplements are taken, it is probably best to take low doses, such as 10 to 15mg or less daily.

I would like to agree to disagree. I thought this post was asking people for their thoughts (regardless of whether we all agree).