Ibuprofen: Benefits and Risks

[Avles]

Originally Posted by ollinger

^^ Ummm, you may have heard that enzymes are polypeptides (proteins), so that if you swallow them they are simply digested in your stomach into individual amino acids and are not distributed in your body as intact enzymes. Thus a swallowed enzyme cannot possibly have effects elsewhere in your body, such as on muscles or tendons.

Ollinger,

These appear to be some peer-reviewed studies on oral enzyme supplementation:

http://www.clinexprheumatol.org/article.asp?a=2784
http://www.springerlink.com/content/eyfkrjvwy720ca45/
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2008/970128/abs/

I'm not qualified to judge the studies on their merits, and perhaps the supplements in these studies are totally different from the product 5263 is mentioning.

But it seems strange to me that this sort of research would even exist if oral enzyme supplementation were as blatantly and inherently useless as you appear to be claiming.

If basic biology tells us that oral enzyme supplementation can have no effects elsewhere the body, why are scientists studying its effects?

[Fee]

Ibuprofen for menstrual cramps (400 mg at a time, usually only one dose necessary) and Tylenol/Caffeine/Aspirin for my migraines once or twice a month. Hot showers for sore muscles and if it's really bad, a trip to the Foot Massage place nearby for a $35 massage (fingers crossed I get someone good).

I have also become very pill adverse. My mother had something like ten prescriptions before she died (horrible diet that she refused to change and never exercised at all), and my father has five or so now, but he's 82 so he gets a bit of a pass. I hate taking pills, even my chewable multivitamin.

[ollinger]

Avles
1) you cite two human studies and a rodent study. Neither human study has a placebo group. This is generally considered unacceptable in studies of pain control because both "active " medications may have placebo effects that can be considerable in subjective scale studies like these. We can't tell from these studies whether a placebo would have caused the same degree of symptom relief.
2) both studies are sponsored by drug companies; in fact, in one of them the authors thank the drug company rep for design and data analysis of the study!! What you need to know about drug companies is that they reserve the right to publish or not publish a study they pay for. So they may have commissioned 20 identical studies done by different groups, with 19 of them being unpublished and showing no benefit and this published one showing possible benefit.
3) in the rutin study the authors point out that the enzyme is quickly metabolized to homovanillic acid (a dopamine metabolite) and other products. They profess they have no idea why an enzyme would work. Why are such studies done, you asked? Because the companies that make the product pay people to do them.
4) the rodent study is irrelevant as rodents have very different GI tracts than we, and may for example absorb some peptides directly from the roof of the mouth, for example.

[ollinger]

5) we haven't even touched on the appropriateness of the statistical data analysis. Several studies of large swaths of the medical literature indicate that somewhere between 50 and 85 percent of PUBLISHED medical studies lack adequate statistical power analysis to definitively prove that there is a difference between the study groups. I don't have the expertise to do this, but I didn't see mention of statistical power analysis in the citations.

[Avles]

Ollinger,

As I said, I wasn't trying to defend these studies' results -- only asking why scientists would be conducting studies that seemed to fly in the face of basic biological principles as articulated in your post.

Your answer to this question seems to be that drug companies will pay people to study any implausible thing if they think it will help their bottom line, that medical researchers will gladly take their money and study the implausible things, that the drug companies can (and do) essentially tamper with their results by only permitting helpful studies to be published, and that "peer-reviewed" journals will obligingly publish these bought-and-paid-for study results.

That's a pretty distressing thought!

[ollinger]

^^ Absolutely. When I ran the clinical psych research ward at Mt. Sinai (NYC) many years ago we took on a few relatively minor drug company studies that we weren't very interested in. (The vast majority of our research was federally funded by NIH and the VA). We, and pretty much everyone else, would do this because the money allowed us to hire extra research assistants who would spend some of their time on the drug company stuff but could also be used some of the time for the real research we were interested in. So it was a way to fund more of the research you really wanted to do.
Not everything in peer reviewed journals is any good. Read the financial disclosure sections in major journals and your head will spin. And read "The Truth About the Drug Companies" by Marcia Angell (former editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of Medicine). Among other shocking disclosures, she describes published drug company studies that were entirely fabricated, made up from thin air.

[Avles]

Fair enough--

I guess the appropriate response to this state of affairs is to rely on the most reputable journals, and to focus on meta-analyses to avoid being led astray by marginal results.

Seems to me that the situation as you characterize it calls for some pretty significant self-policing (or additional government regulation) in the medical research community...

[ollinger]

I tend to rely on certain major landmark studies, usually collaborations between many institutions and usually NIH funded, such as the STAR-D study of antidepressants and the CATIE study of antipsychotics. I think those are pretty dependable.

The government has not been entirely passive about all this. Recent regulations require drug companies to "publish" all studies they fund regardless of outcome, but not in journals -- they have to set up a website where all results can be archved. So the data presumably can be found, but one has to go searching for it.

[5263]

Originally Posted by ollinger

^^ Ummm, you may have heard that enzymes are polypeptides (proteins), so that if you swallow them they are simply digested in your stomach into individual amino acids and are not distributed in your body as intact enzymes. Thus a swallowed enzyme cannot possibly have effects elsewhere in your body, such as on muscles or tendons.

you are right...sort of, but shows how a little understanding misleads.
First, they are coated to allow for body's functions. One coating is taken on
an empty stomach, followed by a 8oz of water to dilute and wash on thru to
deeper into the system. Another coating makes the empty stomach not as important.

All the theory in the world is fine, but when it comes to real world application,
I've had amazing results with many inflammation injuries like TE. At least 10
players helped within days and none not helped, along with several other of
these type injuries. One player kept complaining about his TE for months and
went to the doc as well...no help. I told him not to complain to me anymore
because I had told him how to fix it. He relented, gave in, and tried it. He was
better in 2 days and well in 4; totally amazed after months of pain.
I am sure nothing is Fail Proof, but results with this have always impressed me.
Just sharing a good product. I don't sell or have any stock/interest other
than giving the best tip I have found.

[ollinger]

It sounds sillier to me each time you try to explain it. The smallest known enzyme has 62 amino acids. The GI tract has mechanisms for absorbing chains of generally 2 or 3 amino acids. None of these facts is altered by coating anything or flushing it with water (the latter usually DECREASING absorption of most things).

[charliefedererer]

Originally Posted by ollinger

It sounds sillier to me each time you try to explain it. The smallest known enzyme has 62 amino acids. The GI tract has mechanisms for absorbing chains of generally 2 or 3 amino acids. None of these facts is altered by coating anything or flushing it with water (the latter usually DECREASING absorption of most things).

Ollinger,

You are right.

As usual.

[5263]

Originally Posted by ollinger

It sounds sillier to me each time you try to explain it. The smallest known enzyme has 62 amino acids. The GI tract has mechanisms for absorbing chains of generally 2 or 3 amino acids. None of these facts is altered by coating anything or flushing it with water (the latter usually DECREASING absorption of most things).

Just think how silly it sounds for you to explain away how something that does work,,
can't, lol. I was introduced to this product by my doctor, who had excellent
results with his patients and I have over 5yrs of experience using and sharing.
You remind me of guys who think they are experts on how the aircraft works,
and try explain why it won't do certain things....things that it WILL DO.
Really they are just explaining the limits to THEIR understanding of the systems.
You are right, I can't explain it in detail, just know for a fact that in many cases
it will work.

[5263]

Originally Posted by charliefedererer

Ollinger,

You are right.

As usual.

Better to be wrong in this case I guess...Listening to him, those I helped with TE,
would have continued to suffer for awhile longer than necessary

[Maui19]

I had a doc recommend Ibuprofen for a wrist problem (800 mg 2x day). It took care of the problem (which had been lingering for months). I just hurt my other wrist, and was taking Ibuprofen for that (with success, I think), but after reading this thread I am reluctant to continue. I'm not sure whether that is smart or not. My wrist has gotten worst since I stopped.

My go to pain reliever has always been aspirin.

[5263]

Originally Posted by ollinger

(p.s. -- this is at least the third thread -- healing injuries thread, ibuprofen thread, BP thread -- where you mention this Vitalzym garbage. It is nonsense. If peptides could be swallowed and remain intact, diabetics could merely swallow their insulin instead of having to inject it. I suspect snake oil would be more useful than what you're hawking here.

Not hawking anything...just sharing good tip and results. Easy to spot Garbage
when someone says something, "can't possibly happen" bla bla.
We don't know that much on the body yet...sorry : )

I'll give another personal example.
I caught my ring and degloved my finger, breaking it and it was only attached
by a thin strip of skin. Went to ER and it was successfully repaired, but with
lots of nerve damage. Fast forward over 5 yrs later and
it was still swollen to the extent people would notice and ask about it.
It had several numb areas. I figured that was the best it would be and feared it might
turn worse with age. That was when my doc recommended the Vitalzym for
another injury I had that had been slow to heal on my other hand.

I had strained a ligament on my rt hand swinging the racket with traditional strokes.
Each time it seemed better with rest, only to return as soon as I played
again. Doc said give the Vitalzym a try since he had seen good results with it.
Within a few days the rt hand felt great and at only 5 days rest I gave it a try
on court again with no problems. That hand continues to be problem free, but
I never even considered any effect related to the degloved finger injury from
5 yrs before till a week into taking the enzymes. That finger started to itch..alot.
I knew that itch felt familiar in some odd way, but couldn't place it right off.
About a day later I did remember it was that healing itch I used to feel as a
much younger boy, back when my body healed so fast.

I was thinking,,,why is that swollen finger itching like that? I was even concerned
it could be a bad turn for it. Then I began to notice some feeling in the numb areas,
and the swelling seemed less. Within about 2 weeks, the swelling was basically
unnoticeable and feeling had begun to return to all areas of the finger and range of
motion returned. So 2 serious 5+ yr old injuries healed up within a
couple of weeks of starting the enzymes. Very glad I didn't know they couldn't
work!

[Cindysphinx]

Originally Posted by Maui19

I had a doc recommend Ibuprofen for a wrist problem (800 mg 2x day). It took care of the problem (which had been lingering for months). I just hurt my other wrist, and was taking Ibuprofen for that (with success, I think), but after reading this thread I am reluctant to continue. I'm not sure whether that is smart or not. My wrist has gotten worst since I stopped.

My go to pain reliever has always been aspirin.

Yeah, this thread is weird. The docs on it seem to be treating ibuprofen like a horrible risk.

Yet my two different OS and a sports podiatrist don't seem nearly so alarmed about Ibuprofen and have prescribed it. It seems like a fairly ordinary tool in their tool kit.

I guess my doctors are dummies.

[sureshs]

My son was prescribed ibuprofen to be taken multiple times a day when he injured himself. Helped a lot in reducing inflammation.

[sureshs]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oE7-aUKakQ

This is a video of a naturopath endorsing Vitalzym. He says the coating prevents stomach acid from digesting the enzymes and they remain intact till they reach the intestines, where they get absorbed into the circulatory system.

[sureshs]

Turmeric and ginger are good anti-inflammatory herbs and have been used for centuries.

Andrew Weil likes them:

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA14297...tory-Herbs.com

[Ramon]

Originally Posted by sureshs

Turmeric and ginger are good anti-inflammatory herbs and have been used for centuries.

Andrew Weil likes them:

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA14297...tory-Herbs.com

I actually take those in supplement form on a daily basis. The advantage is that they are safe, and they provide other long-term benefits linked to anti-aging and general health.

However, don't expect them to give you the noticeable short-term benefits of NSAIDs. If you have an acute problem, those supplements won't help much.