The study of resveritrol is moving from supplement companies to pharmaceutical companies. Does this mean that resveritrol is moving into the big time?
This is an excerpt from an article in the WSJ- DavidÂ
"Glaxo said it would keep Sirtris as an autonomous unit. "It fits in with our strategy of looking for the best new science, whether it's external or internal," said Mary Anne Rhyne, a Glaxo spokeswoman. "We think that this is potentially transformative science that could address diseases associated with metabolism and diabetes."
The purchase is the latest acquisition by cash-rich pharmaceutical companies that face looming patent expirations on blockbuster drugs. Two weeks ago, Japan's Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. agreed to buy Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc., also of Cambridge, for $8.8 billion. Last year, AstraZeneca PLC paid $15.6 billion to acquire MedImmune Inc., a Gaithersburg, Md., biotechnology company.
Sirtris has demonstrated that resveratrol, when given in large doses, can lower the blood sugar of human diabetics in amounts comparable to existing diabetes drugs. Studies have also shown that resveratrol can extend the lifespan of obese laboratory rats. That finding has caused much excitement and has led some to suspect it might also extend human lifespans.
Resveratrol is already sold by several companies as a dietary supplement, and Sirtris wouldn't be able to patent the chemical itself. Sirtris is also studying several more-potent follow-on drugs that it could patent. The company has also received a designation from the Food and Drug Administration that would allow it to sell resveratrol exclusively for a rare muscular disorder.
In an interview, Sirtris's chief executive, Christoph Westphal, said the company was five to seven years from having a drug on the market. "If you can target genes that control the aging process to treat diseases of aging in a new way, that's an important insight," he said, adding that Glaxo was "making a very big bet on doing things differently."
My husband's M spike was undetectable on the last electrophoresis,
after having hovered around 0.3-0.4 for a while. The dip from 0.3 to
undetectable happened in a month. We're very happy, of course (even
though other numbers, like the A/G ratio, are still out of whack). This
is his second time in CR. (althoughI don't know if he'd meet the
requirement for stringent CR or not). I was trying to figure out what
was different this last month and the only conclusive thing we've
changed is that he started taking resveratrol again. He'd taken it a
year ago, and then too his M spike went from 0.4 to nothing in a month.
Then we stopped using it for various reasons (expense, difficulty of
obtaining it, too many other supplements, other issues). Though I
couldn't prove that resveratrol was what pushed the M spike down either
time, it's certainly a possibility, and I wanted to report that.
My
husband decided to do without the Dex dose this month and I'm crossing
my fingers that the numbers will stay low. The Dex had pushed him into
diabetes, which we are hoping was a transient thing. It also gave him
high potassium, it seems, which is a problem given the Gerson dietary
protocol he is following. We've been working with a naturopath long
distance, and we've also gotten the oncologist to grudgingly accept the
fact that we're doing other things than just the conventional drugs. He
tried to use the high potassium as a reason to tell us to stop the
diet, but the naturopath told us it isn't the diet creating the
problem, but the drugs, and that changing the diet won't help the
problem. My inclination is to believe her, since the dex has been
so all-around evil for my husband.
Lisa
Lisa,
  What dosage of resveritrol is your husband taking ? Where do you order it ?
  Great news about the zero m-spike. Please let us know what the numbers look like after a month without dex.
Trish
My husband is using Longevinex, one capusle daily. Last year we were
using higher dosages. One casule provides 100 mg of trans resveratrol,
plus quercitin, and 1200 IU of vitamin D.
I'm really not
recommending this brand. In fact I want to do more researchon brands of
resveratrol. But, it does seem to have brought us a good result with a
low dosage. Since my husband is taking huge numbers of supplements
every day,finding something that helps in a low dose is important,
because he is tired of swallowing tens of capusles 5 or 6 times a day,
and because the cost of paying for all these supplements is beginning
to wear us down. At the beginning cost seemed almost irrelevant - we
just thought, we'll do whatever it takes. Now that we're trying to
think about it as a longer term strategy, we have to figure out what we
can afford to keep on doing, month after month after month. I
guess no one ever said that living with MM would be easy!
My husband's M spike is back. 0.25. He skipped the Dex dose this month, so that's probably why.
Lisa-
 i'm asking just to clarify. Your husband supplements with curcumin, resveritrol, juices- what conventional therapies is he taking?
And when you last measured his m-spike, it was 0.0. You believe that due to the fact that he missed his recent dexamethisone dose, his m-spike increased to 0.25 (still low but higher than last time).
What dose is he taking for dex? Hang in there. DavidÂ
Thanks David.
My husband is on 100 mg of Thalidomide a day (doc thinks he's still on 200 mg.-- it's an indication of our pathetic doctor-patient relationship and the doctor's aggressiveness that my husband - a very assertive and successful professional - hasn't mustered the courage to let the doc know what he's doing.) He takes Dex 40 mg a day for four days a month (skipped last month). Zometa once a month. 75 mg. of aspirin daily. And, he takes 8 grams of curcumin a day, resveratrol, a LONG list of other supplements (i can post later if you want, but don't have the list available right offhand), 13 8 ounce juices a day (although some are double portions instead of 13 separate juices), plus he strictly follows the Gerson diet (organic vegetables cooked a certain way, fruits, a small portion of oatmeal daily, a small portion of nonfat yogurt daily, and no fat at all other than one tablespoon of flax oil daily - and NOTHING else. The times he's cheated - due only to circumstance and not to just getting sick of the diet - are few and far between. (It's a hard diet to follow when out of the house, and since his cancer is not something widely known in our community, and even family don't know the situation, there are occasions when the diet is very hard to follow).
I can't say for sure, but since his M spike was 0 and then went up the month he skipped the Dex, we speculate that this was the reason. However, my husband wants to give it another month without Dex to see what happens. We're very unahappy with the Dex. Not only does it devastate him in the short term, it pushed him into transient diabetes, messed up his potassium levels (dangers for cardiac issues, especially on the Gerson diet which is high potassium), and causes him vision problesm which we hope will not be permanent. A nasty drug all around. Ok if it keeps the myeloma down, but we'd rather find an alternative.
 By the way, a naturopath we're working with long distance is recommedning Artemisin. Has anyone used this before? I'll post in a seperate message as well to make sure I don't miss readers.
Thanks
LisaÂ
Lisa,
  Dr. Berenson, my myeloma specialist, has almost all his patients on Medrol instead of dex, at 40 mg every other day, in various protocols. I just switched back to dex, since Revlimid + Medrol stopped working. I doubt it will make a difference, but I can tell you that this dex is MUCH harder to tolerate, and I am able to tolerate dex way better than most people. The only dex side effect I generally have is being up all night. However, I think the long termside effects of dex are probably pretty bad.
As far as artemisinin, the researchers who were working on this supplement and how it works against cancer flat out said it does NOT work againt myeloma. I posted this on the acor list once, since there is someone there who insists that adding it to Velcade put him in remission.
There are a lot of problems with this. First, artemisinin is actually an OXIDANT, not an anti-oxidant, so if you are also taking anti oxidants, timing is a big issue.
 The way it works is thus: Cancer cells, like the malarial parasite, need extra iron. They thus recruit artemisinin and it causes the cells to explode.
I cannot tell you why it does not work for mm patients, but are cancer is of a different stripe. However, I actually did try it, and there are three forms.
Aresumate, artemisinin (also artemisin), and and something else. I actually used all 3 forms. Artemether. The less common two are available from hepalin.com I think..this is where the University of Washington was getting its supply. Unfortunately, studies did not continue due to lack of funding, although they were trying to come up with a patentable compound.
Artemisinin can be found at different places. Once again, I do not think it does anything against myeloma, at least that is what these researchers who had the idea to use it against cancer said.
Finally, you might be surprised that I actually post frequently on the acor list, and Mike Katz blocks about 80 percent of my posts or more. He has a real problem with Dr. Berenson and forbade me to mention his name, or that I think that stem cell transplants will be a thing of the past for mm patients soon. (Dr. Berenson is not the only one to think that.)
Dr. Berenson is probably wrong about monthly Zometa, which he gives to all his patients, (I do not get it), but his criticism of extending infusion to every 3 months is and was valid, as there were not studies to support this interval.
So maybe I will start posting here again. I find this constant censorship quite annoying. Â
Alex Maas
a.maas@cox.netÂ
Lisa-
As one who works hard on following an anti-mm lifestyle, I've got to say that you and your husband are working hard at it! Hang in there.Â
Since you asked for more info on artemisinin, i've included a link below to a application within the b-m.org website that we are testing called "subject pages." This application is still being tested so there may be a bug or two. i have also included a subject page for dexamethasone. Be sure to scroll all the way down the wiki page as there is lots of info included in wikipedia on each of these topics.
Also thanks to Alex Maas for his info on artemisinin. David
http://beating-myeloma.or...
http://beating-myeloma.or...
Alex and David, thanks so much for the info on artemsinin. I'm going to reply to your posts in the artemisinin thread so that it can be more useful to someone reading the website later on. I have some information from the naturapath we're working with about the issue of it being an oxidant.
Lisa
Alex,
I emailed Dr. Henry Lai at the University of Washington asking him about whther artemisinin is useful against myeloma and asking about the issue of using it with antioxidants. This was his reply:
"Artemisinin compounds should be effective against
myeloma.
Yes, the antioxidants could probably neutralize
artemisinin."
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