For reasons that have yet to be defined by science, the incidence of asthma in the general population of the United States has been increasing rapidly during the past few decades. It has become more and more prevalent among young people from our inner cities. An estimated 17 million Americans (about 6% of the population) are now affected by asthma. The disease is responsible for more than 14 million outpatient visits to healthcare professionals, nearly half a million hospitalizations, more than 1 million emergency room visits, and at least 5,000 deaths every year.
Asthma has been estimated to cost the United States about $6.2 billion annually. The scale of the problem and the impact that it has on the lives of people who suffer from it are clearly major issues on the public health agenda.
Asthma has been treated with a variety of drugs over time. All of these drugs have side effects, some of which can be quite serious. The inhaled steroids, for example, have been reported to cause growth retardation in children, weight gain, and even glaucoma. The latest and most promising drugs, the antileukotrienes, also have side effects. They have been reported to cause gastrointestinal discomfort and elevated liver enzyme levels.
The work that has been done to study the effectiveness of the oil of the green-lipped mussel has the potential to have a significant impact on the quality of life of asthma sufferers. A double-blind placebo-controlled study on the use of the mussel oil to treat asthma was conducted under the guidance of Professor Peter J. Barnes of London at the Pavlov University Hospital in Saint Petersburg, Russia (published in European Respiratory Journal, 2002, 20.3).
The subjects were 46 patients who had mild to moderate asthma that was associated with allergies and had not used steroids but were taking rescue medications (beta-2 antagonists, such as Ventolin®). Green-lipped mussel oil was given to 23 of these patients at a dosage of two capsules twice per day. The other 23 were the control group and were given placebos.
The patients who were given the mussel oil showed great improvement in their symptoms and objective measurements of their respiratory functions. There was no similar improvement in the placebo group. The investigators also demonstrated that bronchial inflammation had been reduced in the mussel-oil group. Patients reported a 50% decrease in the frequency and severity of their asthma attacks and in the consequent use of rescue medications.
At the end of 2005, the same team of researchers under Professor Barnes completed a similar study of more serious asthma cases. The results have been submitted for publication.
At the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane, Australia, doctors Ian Shiels and Michael Whitehouse compared the effectiveness of the mussel oil against two antileukotrienes (zafirlukast and montelukast). This study was conducted on rats.
Doctors Shiels and Whitehouse concluded that both antileukotriene drugs were less effective than the mussel oil. Zafirlukast inhibited swelling by 33%, and montelukast inhibited swelling by 71%. The oil of the New Zealand green-lipped mussel inhibited swelling by a whopping 96%. The mussel oil was also shown to be more effective than other plant and marine oils.
Clearly, the oil of the green-lipped mussel is something that every asthmatic should take seriously as a complementary therapy to his or her prescription medication. The use of the mussel oil has a checkered history because the therapeutic qualities of the oil are extremely fragile until it has been stabilized to prevent oxidization. Exposure to the atmosphere or heat causes the mussel oil to oxidize and become useless.
So, although it may be tempting to visit the seafood market and try these mussels for dinner, they will have no therapeutic value once they have been shucked and cooked.
The fragility of the mussel oil was not understood at first, and early attempts by various parties to produce a mussel extract produced compounds that varied considerably in quality and effectiveness. As a result, early trials of mussel extract often reported no or very little measurable benefit to patients.
To date, only one company (through a patented process) has managed to extract the oil of the green-lipped mussel and package it in a form that retains its therapeutic value. That product is marketed under the name Lyprinol®. The trials at the Saint Petersburg and Brisbane hospitals used Lyprinol specifically rather than some of the mussel powders that were also on the market. Lyprinol has been sold in 23 countries for more than a decade and, to date, has an unblemished safety record.
If Lyprinol can significantly reduce the symptoms of asthma and bring quality of life back to asthmatics, this is promising news indeed.
About the Author:
A fellow of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, Georges M. Halpern, M.D., Ph.D., is board certified in internal medicine and allergy and is Past Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the University of California, Davis. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and is the author of The Inflammation Revolution: A Natural Solution for Arthritis, Asthma & Other Inflammatory Disorders (Square One).
