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Vitamin A Compound

piping profile image
24 Replies

Has anyone heard anymore about the treatment of emphysema with the treatment of retinoic acid being carried out by Professor Malcom Maden at Kings College London?

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piping
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Sokrackers profile image
Sokrackers

Hi Piping

Professor Matthew Hind (Royal Brompton) is still researching the molecules including a variety of different retinoids looking at regeneration of human lung 2015.

I have had some emails from him and will write of any updates I receive on his progress.

Unfortunately, I am recovering after 8 weeks of illness so please forgive the brevity of my reply.

Hope this helps a little

SK

piping profile image
piping in reply to Sokrackers

SK....thanks for taking time to reply.Hope u are feeling better.

Peter Piping

Sokrackers profile image
Sokrackers in reply to piping

Hi P you will see he wrote the 2011 paper with Malcolm Madden

Hind M, Maden M. Is a regenerative approach viable for the treatment of COPD? Br J Pharmacol. 2011 May;163(1):106-15.

Taken from

rbht.nhs.uk/healthprofessio...

piping profile image
piping in reply to Sokrackers

thank u once again SK!

freefaller profile image
freefaller in reply to Sokrackers

Hope you are better now Socrackers.

Sohara profile image
Sohara

Sounds interesting, Lets hope he gets some positive results from his trial

Hi Sokrackers, and thanks for being in touch with this guy at RBH. Will await further reports with interest although I'm not sure it'll be of any benefit to bronchs, seems to be more for emphysema. I hope you're on the mend.

rf4c profile image
rf4c

Hi,

I actually tracked down Dr.Maden and he was very kind to reply to my enquiry.

He is a copy of the email he sent to me:

Dear Jim,

I am very sorry to hear about your COPD.

I have only studied the effect of retinoic acid (the vitamin A active metabolite) in mice lungs where it worked very well to repair damage and induce regeneration of alveoli. This was also done by Don Massaro in Georgetown University, USA. These ideas were taken up by Roche who organized a clinical trial and I don’t know whether the results were positive or negative, they haven’t been released yet to my knowledge.

Assuming this does translate to humans, taking vitamin A would not have an effect because it gets stored in the liver and the active metabolite, retinoic acid, is carefully regulated in its levels. Takin retinoic acid directly it the way to do this but it is not available unless on prescription. For example it is used as Accutane for the treatment of sever cystic acne.

My colleague who I did this work with is now a senior consultant at the Royal Brompton Hospital in Fulham, London and would almost certainly have the latest information on clinical trials. I don’t know whether you are in the UK or USA, but an email to him may be useful. His email is M.Hind@rbht.nhs.uk.

I am sorry I can’t be of much help but I only work on animals and try to make them better, not humans!

Best wishes,

Malcolm Maden

piping profile image
piping in reply to rf4c

rf4c..thank you for taking the time to post this information...it is most useful as have been wondering how to obtain retinoic acid.

stilltruckin profile image
stilltruckin in reply to piping

Oral retinoic acid is a prescription-only cancer drug with heavy side-effects: oncolink.org/treatment/arti...

piping profile image
piping in reply to stilltruckin

stilltruckin...thanks for your time and effort to help but unfortunately I can't get into that site/link.

cheers...

stilltruckin profile image
stilltruckin in reply to piping

Try this: chemocare.com/chemotherapy/...

piping profile image
piping in reply to stilltruckin

thank you stilltruckin for your info....was very interesting.Once again thank you for your help.

rf4c profile image
rf4c

Sorry, one more mail. This one I got from Dr. Hind:

Dear Mr Madden

Many thanks for your email and your interest in our work.

There is no evidence that retinoic acid can induce lung regeneration in man though this is something I am currently exploring with my team at NHLI Imperial.

If you would like to be reviewed as a patient, I am involved in the advanced Lung clinic at Brompton and where we offer a range of experimental approaches for COPD/emphysema or I do see people privately if not entitled to NHS care.

Best wishes

Matthew Hind

Consultant Physician

stilltruckin profile image
stilltruckin

news.yale.edu/2015/05/07/re...

piping profile image
piping in reply to stilltruckin

once again stilltruckin thank you..u are amazing!How you find this info is fantastic.

Seaelf profile image
Seaelf

This. Is very interesting .Thankyou

rf4c and Sokrackers for relaying the e mail info and st for links.

Dr Hind speaks as the scientist s/he is admitting there is no evidence..

but all the same is looking for it

and reckons it worth chasing.

In the meantime a number of us are taking our vitamin A on chiefly

anecdotal base i m among them.

See no prob with that so long as all respect legal and not lethal dose .

piping profile image
piping in reply to Seaelf

Hi hopeup....are you taking a regular dose of vitamin A or are you actually taking retinoic acid?

Seaelf profile image
Seaelf in reply to piping

Hello Piping

Just vit A from H&B.

piping profile image
piping in reply to Seaelf

Hello hopeup!Think that is safest way to go at the moment.I will find out the max dosage of vit.A it is safe to take .Thank you for taking the time to reply.

Seaelf profile image
Seaelf

Piping -

This may help

mayoclinic.org/drugs-supple...

Its usually comprehensive.

I think at 8000 a day its safe its said somewhere that problems are rare even at 20 000 i.u.

I take 8000 vit A a day and 25000 beta carotene every five days

which comes to almost 12000

a day.

Keep us posted any finds. Thanks.

piping profile image
piping in reply to Seaelf

thank you Hopeup....will double my current intake of vitamin A and start taking beta carotene!

stilltruckin profile image
stilltruckin

Official upper limit for preformed vitamin A (retinol) is 10,000 IU/day, but there's a wide margin of error built into that . . .

ajcn.nutrition.org/content/...

Quote:

'. . . Chronic toxicity results from the ingestion of high amounts of preformed vitamin A for months or years. Daily intakes of >25 000 IU for >6 years and >100,000 IU for >6 months are considered toxic, but there is wide interindividual variability for the lowest intake required to elicit toxicity . . .'

piping profile image
piping in reply to stilltruckin

Thanks again stilltruckin!

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