This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Knowledge & Support Community

You are correct Jimmy wife's levels are quite low as you mention, I am waiting the inosine from USA and will give her this week in order to increase her uric acid above 200µmol/L!
And I thought 2.9mg/dL is normal...

great! if you can get her from 2.9 to 4.9 she'll be in the zone

cheer, somehow i glossed over this before

We had his uric acid levels tested at start, which were low (below 3.6 mg) He is now high/normal (around 8 mg) He has blood work every 3 months, and this is part of the test. He has had a good year...no relapse, no progression. He was taking 2mg daily, now is taking 1mg. We'll have levels checked again in June.

that is really great that he's had a good year re: relapse and progression! and really smart to have quarterly bloodwork.
i guess he's still safe from gout, if one can go as high as 9.5 and not have it

More evidence of Inosine being neuroprotective. This was a phase 2 study fwiw and the researchers are warning people of the risks outside of a clinical setting i.e. gout, kidney stones.

High levels of urate could slow Parkinson's

By Kathleen Fackelmann, USA TODAY
High levels of a natural substance in the blood called urate might slow the progression of Parkinson's, a study out today suggests.

The results raise the hope that urate, or a nutritional supplement called inosine that is converted to urate in the body, might slow the disabling symptoms of Parkinson's, a brain disease that affects more than 1 million people in the USA. Right now, drugs for Parkinson's treat the symptoms but do nothing to slow the progression of the devastating disease, says one study author, Alberto Ascherio of the Harvard School of Public Health.

Previous research had noted that healthy people with high blood levels of urate had a reduced risk of developing Parkinson's later in life. To expand on that research, Ascherio, Michael Schwarzschild of the Massachusetts General Hospital and their colleagues studied 800 people with mild Parkinson's. They looked at blood levels of urate naturally present in the blood and the rate of disease progression over a two-year period.

The team did a statistical analysis and discovered that people with the highest levels of urate had about half the risk of getting significantly worse. At the end of the study, these people still did not require treatment with drugs that replace dopamine, a brain chemical that helps regulate movement.

Parkinson's occurs when brain cells that produce dopamine are slowly destroyed. The symptoms of the disease worsen as time goes on and more of these brain cells die, Ascherio says.

I had a blood test last Monday, and just got the results back.

One thing that was a question in my mind is how quickly the effect of inosine was on my Uric acid, and if I could control it at all. So, on the day, I took 1.5g in the morning and another 1.5g a few hours before the blood draw (normally I take 1g twice a day). I know a sample size of one isnt too much to go off, but the results indicate that it may of had an effect.

My previous 3 results have been (Units are mmol/L, with a reference range of 0.20 to 0.46):
16/05/06 0.27
05/01/07 0.43
01/10/07 0.38

My last result was:
15/04/08 0.47

The first reading I had after my MS Dx was below the reference range (i.e. below 0.2). For my next test, I may try skipping the inosine for the day, and maybe the day before.

hey cure that's very interesting! sounds like you were exactly in the ms zone at dx time. looks like you're in way better shape now, great!

CURE I believe optimal dose is 2mg and less if you can't have frequent blood tests, it's better to incease gradually your uric acid rather take huge inosine doses and be in risk of gout.
One week before I started wife's daily inosine supps, first days 1gr, now she takes 2grs.
Hope it will work as does in animals (mices, pigs).

so sounds like cure is right on track at 1mg 2x per day in the normal routine. i will keep this in mind for if i ever get around to taking inosine myself :S
maybe one more crappy result will tip me over the edge?

hi again, i know there have been many more postings about uric acid on more recent threads than this one, but here's an update. when i said above that my level was normal, "luckily", that was before i knew that there was a "normal range" normal, as opposed to an "ms average" and a "healthy controls average". now i know that i've been stuck at or below the ms average the whole time since diagnosis. in spite of trying to up the high purine foods.

i've just made the connection, (though i might have run across it before unawares) that zinc status and uric acid have a relationship. and since my zinc has been quite a bit lower than the bottom end of the normal range, i had a quick scout for connections between zinc and UA, with this result:

Effect of Zinc Deficiency on Urinary Excretion of Nitrogenous Compounds and Liver Amino Acid-catabolizing Enzymes in Rats

The effect of dietary zinc deficiency in rats on the levels of urinary nitrogen, urea, uric acid, and creatinine was studied. Zinc deficiency substantially increased urinary excretion of total nitrogen. The amount of urea excretion of zinc-deficient rats was approximately 42 and 87% more than that of zinc-supplemented pair-fed and ad libitum-fed rats, respectively. Zinc-deficient rats also showed significantly higher excretion of uric acid. No difference was observed in creatinine excretion between zinc-deficient and zinc-supplemented groups. Further studies demonstrated that zinc-deficient rats had increased activities of liver tryptophan pyrrolase and arginase. The activities of liver threonine dehydratase and serine dehydratase were unaffected by zinc deficiency. Overall findings support in principle the concept that zinc deficiency results in an increased protein catabolism and also indicate that the hepatic amino aciddegrading enzymes may be one of the possible regulating sites involved in the protein metabolism of rats.

if i have anything in common with rats, hopefully all this zinc supplementing i've been doing will show up in my next UA result too. hope so!

Thanks for the zinc connection, JL. You always connect the dots

I hopped on the inosine bus at the beginning of our MS tour. I'd read all about the antioxidant, peroxynitrite-inhibited benefits of increasing uric acid in MSers. Interesting side note, Copaxone increases uric acid, and some think this is a large part of how it works in RRMS. Interferons do not change serum UA levels.

http://msj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/6/6/378

AC

thanks cheer
can u imagine the whole picture, a thousand points with squiggly lines between all the dots :S

Three elements are very promising regarding MS, curcumin, inosine and N-acetyl cysteine!

I've been taking 2g of inosine pretty much every day for the last 3 to 4 years and this didn't stop my last 2 relapses but these were, I aver, stimulated by drugs/infrared sauna use...What dose do others suggest for inosine?

GG cure or bust takes inosine too but i'm not sure what dosage, although i'm pretty sure that's been posted in the past - maybe he'll notice this thread and re-post
i haven't been taking any inosine, just tried to eat more high purine foods but it hasn't worked to raise my serum UA yet.
maybe with the zinc deficiency addressed it will climb. if not, i think inosine supplementation will be in my future!

jimmylegs wrote:GG cure or bust takes inosine too but i'm not sure what dosage, although i'm pretty sure that's been posted in the past - maybe he'll notice this thread and re-post

I also take 2g a day normally, and it hasn't stopped me from having relapses either. However, since starting (3+y ago) my uric acid levels have been in the high normal range. On my last blood test, I took 3g on that day, and I just pushed over into above normal.

Before I started taking inosine, my uric acid was below the reference range considered normal by the processing lab.

gibbledygook wrote:What dose do others suggest for inosine?

In the study I have, done in serbia, they were given 1g-2g given daily, dependent on their starting uric acid levels.