Patients who began treatment with AVONEX immediately after their first attack had a 43% decrease in the risk of developing a second attack compared to those who began treatment on placebo...
An interesting result. I'm sure the stockholders will be happy...
However, the study that I would really like to see done is what can be achieved with supplements, lifestyle, and diet changes to postpone disease progression after a CIS. For example with lifestyle, for those who smoke, quit smoking; for those who don't exercise, begin moderate exercise, and get regular sleep. With respect to diet, reduce saturated fat and eliminate trans fat and other proinflammatory foods; add more fruits and veggies. With respect to supplements, how about omega-3 fatty acids; anti-inflammatory antioxidants such as lipoic acid, epigallocatechin gallate from green tea, and curcumin from turmeric; in addition lets not forget vitamins D & E. Surely, it would be easier to make these changes for 5 years than take a drug which has a retail cost of about $60,000 US for 5 years with particularly annoying side effects? OK, that was a rhetorical question. I'm not trashing Avonex, I take the stuff myself. I'm just annoyed that little appears to have been done in human trials to answer the above question about diet, supplements, and lifestyle. Of course, if I'm wrong then it would be great if someone could point me towards these studies. The only work that I've run into with some of the supplements I've mentioned has been with EAE models (although there have been some good results with lipoic acid in a small phase 1 trial it wasn't designed to answer the question of disease progression).
NHE
