One site said it was good for diabetic nerve damage. I am thinking of taking it for inflamation as many seem to take it for r arthiritis.

Do you take it? Why? What do you feel it personally does for you?

I took it years ago. For about 2 yrs....we all did in this house.

A modest dose however. GLA is an intermediate player in the EFA chemistry, so if people are very low they may not have much of this either.

But once EFA status is repaired, I think you will make your own.

This link explains the GLA paradox:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essenti...d_interactions

I really don't understand how in high amounts this works however, so I don't recommend it. I do know that once I was
rather "fixed" by the EFAs I was using, I bought a stronger GLA by necessity on vacation. It upset my GI tract considerably...so I realized I didn't need it anymore and stopped using it.

This chemistry is very very complex... so even if one understands some of it...that might do. Steroids, and NSAIDs skew this chemistry and block Cox-2. High insulin levels fuel inflammation, and that much we know.

Basically you need to REDUCE Omega-6's, and increase Omega=3's to a ratio of 3 to 6 being 1:5. GLA is an omega-6, but seems to have multiple duties, much like the paradox with Cox-2 cytokine prostacyclin which unlike other Cox-2cytokines is not inflammtory. This of course makes it more complicated in reality. The mechanism of Vioxx damage was it blocked Cox-2 so well, that prostacyclin could not be made in the kidney, and hence its vasodilating actions were gone, and people had heart attacks (constriction). So one cannot block ALL cox-2, and in the same way some GLA Omega-6 is helpful. Got that? It is very complicated.

This is my EFA thread on the vitamin forum...
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread6092.html

I just fixed a dead link in it...so there may be others too.
This thread started 8 yrs ago!

I am correcting some expired links on my EFA thread at our vitamin forum.

I found this good explanation of GLA by Thorne:

http://www.thorne.com/altmedrev/.fulltext/9/1/70.pdf

It is complicated, but if you go slowly, you'll find you understand it
over time.

Thanks MrsD! I spent time yesterday reading and will keep reading up on it before I make a decision if I want to try it. Thanks for the links!

On a side note: I am also doing a lot of reading on turmeric curcumin for inflamation, specifically eden pond brand. On amazon that specific brand had like 378 reveiws and ALL of them were 5 stars. While I don't particularly expect reviews at amazon to be proof of anything I found it quite amazing that every single review was a 5 star. Now THAT is unusual. Mostly about arthiritis, and pain with it and inflamation. I am hoping that might help me further since zyflamend has that and other anti inflamatory ingredients and it is still helping my burning. Do you have an opinion on turmeric curcumin?

Curcumin is a very good anti-inflammatory. But most of stays in the GI tract...as it is not well absorbed.

There are versions with solubility enhancements. Choose one that explains that with detailed data.

When used in studies that you can pull up on PubMed...those studies used enhanced forms.

Curcugel 500
or Longvida Curcumin
or liposomal forms

I just read a lot more of those great reviews for eden pond and I am starting to doubt the product. The reviews all sound similar. Also, it does not have biopreme? in it, which seems to be important. (not sure if that is spelled right or what it is, clearly I have more research to do)

thanks MrsD!