22/12/2020
This is a long but interesting read. Before you read this - you need to understand that PEA is not approved for marketing by the TGA for any specific medical conditions, ie no medical claims are made in Australia. The research below is for educational purposes.
PEA is a food supplement/extract that may help with pain and inflammation according to scientific studies.
The paper linked is a Review Paper, and covers a lot of different areas, and lists the studies in each. There is a lot of scientific terminology, but you can simply google terms that are unfamiliar.
It includes:
Parkinsons Disease - lists studies that indicated: "oral supplementation with PEA slowed down the disease progression and disability scores, and proved to be a valuable add-on option in PD patients [87]. "
Alzheimers - shows studies: "These promising results suggest that dietary supplementation with PEA might be a valuable option in the management of MCI-associated neuroinflammation and related neurodegenerative disorders."
Multiple Sclerosis: "In a clinical study conducted on 29 patients with Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis (RR-MS), oral supplementation with PEA-um (600 mg/day for 12 months, added to subcutaneous Interferon (IFN)-β1a), beside relieving pain at IFN-β1a injection site, significantly reduced the plasma concentration of inflammatory cytokines (IFN-γ, IL-17, TNF-α) [96]. The quality of life of supplemented patients was also improved compared to the placebo-treated group, as assessed with MSQoL-54—Multiple Sclerosis Quality of Life 54 questionnaire [96]."
ALS: "More recently, a broad clinical study performed on 64 patients suffering from ALS has shown that dietary administration of PEA-um (600 mg twice daily for 6 months) added to standard therapy (i.e., riluzole) significantly slowed down the decline in pulmonary function as measured by forced vital capacity (FVC), and lowered the severity of ALS symptoms, compared to patients treated with riluzole alone [98]. It is also noteworthy that a short-term add-on dietary PEA-um (600 mg twice daily for 1 week) proved to reduce the level of disability and improve muscular response to fatigue in 22 patients with myasthenia gravis (MG), as assessed by Repetitive Nerve Stimulation and Quantitative MG score [99]."
Autism Spectrum Disorders: "The first case report on PEA-um in ASD dealt with two children (aged 13 and 15) [102]. Both patients had severe comprehension problems and difficulty expressing themselves, and suffered from behavioral disorders [102]. The add-on administration of PEA-um (600 mg twice daily for 3 months) to the standard therapy led to a clear improvement in the expressive, relational, and cognitive-behavioral abilities, in both patients [102]. Moreover, in a translational study it was found that co-ultraPEA-Lut (1 mg/kg for 2 weeks or 3 months) ameliorated social and nonsocial behaviors in a murine model of valproic acid-induced autistic behaviors, and benefited a male child aged 10 affected by ASD (700 mg + 70 mg bid) [100]. In particular, after one-year supplementation, the child experienced reduced ASD-associated behavioral problems, especially in the area of social skills and anxiety [100]. In the BTBR mouse model of idiopathic autism, dietary supplementation with PEA-um (30 mg/kg for 10 days) was recently shown to revert the altered behavioral phenotype through the activation of PPAR-α and reduce the inflammatory state in the hippocampus [101]. In addition, improvement of the epithelial barrier integrity and microbiota composition in the gut was also detected, suggesting an involvement of microbiota-gut-brain axis [101]."
Acute and Chronic Pain: This is a gigantic section - read it in the clinical paper. It includes papers on neuropathic (eg sciatic) pain, reduced (slowed) tolerance to morphine, tibia fracture pain (mice), may reduce nerve damage, reduced cytokine and mast cell hyperplasia, and stacks more (low back pain, carpal tunnel) Read the section if you have pain.
Chronic Pelvic Pain,
Migraine Pain "The patients received PEA-um (at the dose of 600 mg/day) for three months, and the headache attack frequency (AF) and attack intensity (AI) were measured at baseline and at the end of the study [131]. After three months, 63.9% of patients recorded a reduction of the headache AF by >50%; the number of monthly attacks, headache AI, percentage of patients with severe attacks and monthly assumption of drugs for the attack were significantly reduced [131]. In this study, only 1 patient recorded mild side effect consisting of nausea and vomiting [131]."
Fibromyalgia "In a observational study conducted on 80 patients with FM, 30-day administration of a FSMP containing PEA-um (600 mg/bid) followed by two-month supplementation with PEA-m (300 mg/bid) in addition to the standard therapy (duloxetine and pregabalin) showed a significant and greater improvement in pain intensity (assessed by VAS) and positive tender points, compared to the control group treated with duloxetine and pregabalin only [132]. None of the patients enrolled in this study recorded adverse side effects [132]. Similar results have been reported in another retrospective observational study recently performed on 407 patients with the diagnosis of FM, who received PEA-um (600 mg/day) regardless of the concurrent pharmacological therapy (add-on intervention) [133]. The results showed that 359 patients recorded an improvement in the pain score (measured by VAS) and quality of life (assessed by Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire, FIQ), with only 36 patients reporting adverse events principally of gastrointestinal type (diarrhea, dyspepsia, bloating, constipation, and vomiting) [133]."
"The recent FDA approval for the adjunct use of PEA-um in patients affected by one the most severe forms of neuroinflammation, i.e., COVID-19, provides a further proof-of-concept in this respect."
This paper is published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.
Neuroinflammation is a physiological response aimed at maintaining the homodynamic balance and providing the body with the fundamental resource of adaptation to endogenous and exogenous stimuli. Although the response is initiated with protective purposes, the effect may be detrimental when not regul...
