MS patients can be helped by lipoic acid
You gotta love the mainstream. If something works, it MUST be a drug, right?
They just can't bring themselves to admit that non-drug treatments can be better than meds -- so if you've seen headlines about a "new drug" discovery for multiple sclerosis, I've got news for you today.
It's NOT a drug!
It's not even new, for that matter.
It's a natural antioxidant called lipoic acid, an ordinary and inexpensive vitamin-like compound already known for its power to protect the nerves from the painful neuropathy that often strikes people battling diabetes.
In the new study, 27 patients with MS were given 1,200 mg per day of lipoic acid, also known as alpha lipoic acid or ALA. Another two dozen were given a placebo.
The folks who got the real supplements got some real benefits right where it's needed most: deep inside the brain.
MS is known to go after your gray matter, practically eating it up and causing atrophy, a.k.a. "brain shrink."
But the folks who got the real supplements had a 68 percent improvement in the shrink rate compared to those on the placebo.
That's what you can measure.
But what you can FEEL and SEE is just as important, and the supplement passed those real-world tests with flying colors: The folks who took it had fewer falls and faster walking speeds.
Now, it's one thing for a treatment -- whether it's a drug or a natural therapy -- to show a little improvement over the short haul.
It's quite another when you look at the big picture, because many promising treatments that deliver early on often fizzle out over time.
Not ALA.
This wasn't a short-term study. It lasted a full two years!
This might be the most encouraging news for MS patients in ages, especially when you consider that many folks with this disease have so few options.
Until now, the biggest "breakthrough" in recent years was a new drug that can cause dizziness, headaches, seizures, nausea, loss of muscle strength, headache, and more.
If those all sound like the symptoms of being poisoned, you've got the right idea -- that same "treatment" is actually a compound that's been used as bird poison!
ALA is the opposite of poison. In folks with diabetes, this same antioxidant can help prevent the nerve damage that leads to painful neuropathy and even help control blood sugar.
With benefits like that, you can bet Big Pharma is already hard at work cooking up a plan to create a synthetic version of this nutrient, slap a patent on it, and then jack up the price by several thousand percent.
Why bother?
You'll find ALA widely available in any decent vitamin shop, as well as online. Speak to your doc about adding this to your routine and what dose might be right for you.