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Vicc · 11-28-2007, 12:00 PM

Hello again, Linnie,

In your reply here and your reply to another post I wrote, you talk about blood clotting and anticoagulants; I just happen to know something about what you face, as both my wife and daughter have been hospitalized for DVT, and in both instances, doctors tried to prepare me for the very real possibility that they would die.

(My daughter was pregnant and needed to inject heparin daily; she and her children had to move in with us to be closer to the med center, and I remember waking early every morning in order to be the first to learn whether she survived another night).

In addition to two incidents of DVT, my wife has suffered two pulmonary embolisms and a stroke during surgery (age 34). I know something about the consequences of the disease you face, and about the dangers of anticoagulant therapy; it is a very delicate balance.

I don’t know what blood thinner you use, but I assume its warfarin, and that means you must be constantly monitored even though your dosage has probably been well-established over time. (For others: Warfarin is the active ingredient in mouse and rat killers; their blood stops clotting and they eventually die of internal hemorrhage).

Anything that could affect the warfarin, enhancing or inhibiting its effect, could cost you your life, so you must be extremely careful. The dangers of interactions between this and so many other drugs and foods may be greater than with any other medication.

After reading your reply here, I did a quick keyword search of PubMed and Medscape, and learned of research showing that GSE does enhance the effects of warfarin, and this may someday lead to a combination with fewer risks of bleeding; but not yet. Today, no one knows the proper balance, so it is simply too dangerous to combine the two.

You are justified in fearing GSE with your disorder, and the known consequences of birth control drugs and devices include abnormal clotting, so any woman who has experienced this and is on anticoagulants should avoid GSE, but that is not the case with most of us afflicted with RSD. In fact, anyone who has suffered clotting, but not taking anticoagulants, would most likely benefit from GSE as it appears to reduce the risk of future incidents.

My brief search turned up research showing that GSE is useful in countless disorders: Type “grape seed extract” into PubMed and you will find more than 200 abstracts talking about the benefits GSE in the context of many disorders; it reduces cholesterol, is effective in killing cancer cells in many types of cancer, and even reduces the risks of smoking.

For some reason, a keyword search using “antioxidants” and “anticoagulants” brings up more than 3900 abstracts, but not all involving anticoagulants; this shows that the number of uses for antioxidants has increased nearly exponentially since I first looked nearly ten years ago.

I see that in another post you appear to locate yourself in San Diego; as a neuroscientist there, perhaps you know of Stuart Lipton, M.D., Ph.D.; professor and Scientific Director of the Center for Neuroscience, Stem Cells, and Aging, Burnham Institute for Medical Research, and professor at the Salk Institute; Scripps Center and UCSD. Here is what he had to say about antioxidants.

In a lecture on Alzheimer's Disease (aired on UCTV on 4/01/07), Dr Lipton spent the first half-hour discussing the free radical theory on aging and the benefits of antioxidants. He did not mention GSE specifically, but did talk about resveratol (from red wine). He suggested wine alone will not provide adequate antioxidant protection; joking that one would need to drink "many, many cases of red wine a night" to achieve adequate antioxidant protection.

Later in the lecture he discussed how oxidants (oxygen free radicals - OFRs), damage DNA, and how they specifically misfold proteins, and that "Misfolded proteins are thought to disrupt the normal function of nerve cells, leading to their injury and eventual demise"

Speaking specifically about Alzheimer's disease, he talked about when NMDA (Glutamate) receptors in neural ion pathways are misfolded; they allow glutamate to build up to the point that these ion pathways (specifically calcium + ions) remain open and the cells "excite each other to death"

One of the original researchers into memantine, Lipton talked about how that drug closes these ion channels and then exits quickly, allowing the channel to reopen; but that he doesn't believe that will lead to a cure. In his opinion, the cure will be found in antioxidants that prevent Lewy body-like inclusions to the PDI protein that refolds proteins.

Finding the antioxidant that can cross the blood-brain barrier is a significant part of Dr Lipton’s research.

If the free radical theory on aging proves correct, antioxidants may be the most important discovery of the 20th century. I don’t believe they are the fountain of youth, but they could produce the safest and most effective medications ever known.

The other side-effects you mention are constantly reported with placebos, but whether they are, or aren't placebo effect, they are trivial compared with the benefits of GSE.

While I agree with: So please exercise caution with these supplements. We're all on a lot of meds and sometimes there can be pretty severe interactions!I don’t think this warning is appropriate to antioxidants in general or GSE specifically; it is safe, and even if I’m proved wrong about symptom migration, a wise precaution for nearly everyone…Vic