Pycnogenol Helps Asthma symptoms, Study shows
One of my favorite studies on antioxidants involves the use of pycnogenol, a pine bark extract and super-duper powerful antioxidant, and how it dramatically reduced the need for children to use their asthma inhalers.
Seriously, pycnogenol helps asthma sufferers- isn’t that cool? Here’s how it went. The researchers took about 60 kids, ages 6-18, all of whom suffered from mild to moderate asthma. On average, these kids needed to use their albuterol inhalers about three times a day.
These kids were then given pycnogenol at a dose of one milligram per pound of body weight per day. Of course, there was a control group who got placebo instead.
And what were the results? Dramatic, in a word. After three months of supplementation with pycnogenol, those kids went from using their asthma rescue inhalers three times a day on average, to about 0.3 times a day on average. In other words, most kids didn’t use them at all on a given day.
Isn’t that amazing? A NINETY PERCENT reduction in the use of rescue medication, in just three months of supplementation! Actually, if you look at a graph of the incidence of inhaler use, medication use drops off steadily starting at just one month of supplementation. The control group had no change, indicating this was a real effect and not just a mental placebo effect.
Additionally, there was a dramatic decrease in some urine test scores indicative of asthmatic response, and a significant increase in Forced Expiratory Volume (FEV), a test of breathing function (you basically blow really hard into a tube).
Pretty amazing stuff, especially when you recall that this is a nutritional supplement, not a medication, without any of the scary side effects of medication. Can you see why I’m huge on recommending antioxidants?
The mechanism of action of all this is probably through the modulation of NF-kB, which is kind of a chemical on/off switch for inflammation in your body. Since asthma is basically an over-active inflammatory response in the airways, it stands to reason that if you can return an out-of-control inflammatory response to a more reasonable response, you won’t get as bad of symptoms.
It seems powerful antioxidants like pycnogenol have the effect of returning overactive NF-kB responses back to normal, or at least closer to normal. This has huge implications for health overall. Chronic or over-active inflammation is starting to look like the culprit in a whole host of the diseases that plague our society, heart disease among them.
This article is a fantastic, powerful demonstration as to just how effective antioxidants are in promoting overall health. The article citation is “Lau et al, J Asthma 41: 825-832, 2004” for those of you who would like to look up the original published article.
Having read this, would you consider using pycnogenol if your child had asthma? Comment below! And don’t forget to use the buttons below to share this article with your friends and loved ones… who knows who might benefit from this information!
Stay healthy!
[…] much, you’ve probably seen me mention it here and there… like in this article on how pycnogenol helps asthma symptoms or this one on reducing inflammation with […]
I have asthma. I am allergic to pine and pine products from plywood to retsina to pine nuts . Any other suggestions?
Try another antioxidant in the OPC family. Resveratrol would be my first choice. OPC-type antioxidants seem to work in a similiar fashion, and resveratrol has been shown to exhibit some of the same kinds of effects as pycnogenol (including anti-inflammatory), so I would give it a go. It’s an extract of red wine… I like to joke that it’s what keeps French people alive even though they smoke, eat fatty foods, and annoy people (just teasing, my French friends!).
My mother has asthma and after reading this study, I’ve convinced her to try this for 3 months at the very least. One question is that the study you listed above says 1mg of pycogenol per pound and other sites on the internet says 1mg per Kg. Can you clarify what the actual dose should be. Also when searching for a brand of pycogenol, is there something we should be weary of ie. certain ingredients. Or is one brand better than the other.
Thanks
A mg/kg is what is typically used in most studies, but you can go further with it without concern of overdose. Most effects of OPC type antioxidants are dose-dependent, so bumping up the dosage to a mg/pound can be useful. In fact, I take close to 3 mg/kg per day myself, which has completely knocked out the nasty sinus infections I used to get on a bimonthly basis. I’m unaware of any pitfalls with pycnogenol; as far as brands go, I prefer liquid/powder or chewables over capsules or hard tablets (NEVER get hard tablets if you can avoid it!). I’ve got more info on general guidelines for picking out supplements in my free report on the subject (available at the top of the right side column of the page). Let us know how she does!