Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
to its cholinergic property. The incidence of adverse events such as dizziness, nau-
sea, and diarrhea with HA 0.2 mg was comparable with that observed with placebo
control. No liver and kidney toxicity was detected.
87,88
In early study, 99% of 128 patients with myasthenia gravis showed controlled or
improved clinical manifestations of the disease. The duration of action of HA lasted
7
6 h, and side effects were minimal compared with neostigmine.
89
In the United States, the safety and efficacy of HA were evaluated in 26 patients
meeting the DSM IV-R and the NINCDS-ADRDA criteria for uncomplicated AD
and possible or probable AD.
90
This study (office-based) lasted 3 months and was
open label. Other therapies, including tacrine, donepezil, and G. biloba were contin-
ued. An oral dose of 50 mg HA was given twice a day to 22 patients, and the 4 other
patients received a dose of 100 mg twice daily. A mean dementia baseline score of
22.6 was measured with the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). The changes
in this score, for the 50 mg group and for the 100 mg group, respectively, were 0.5
and 1.5 points at 1 month, 1.2 and 1.8 points at 2 months, and 1.1 and 1.0 points at
3 months. Despite the small number of patients, the authors observed dose-related
improvements with higher MMSE scores at higher dosage and no serious side effects.
Sun et al. reported that HA enhanced the memory and learning performance of
adolescent students.
56
With a double-blind and matched-pair method, 34 pairs of
junior middle-school students complaining of memory inadequacy were divided
into two groups. The memory quotient of the students receiving HA was higher
than those of the placebo group, and the scores on Chinese language lessons in
the treated group were also elevated markedly. They also finished a test in AD
patients.
87
Sixty AD patients were divided into two groups taking HA (4
50 mg
p.o., b.i.d., for 60 days) in capsules and tablets, respectively. There were significant
differences on all psychological evaluations between ''before'' and ''after'' the
60 days trials for the two groups. No severe side effects except moderate-to-mild
nausea were observed. HA can reduce the pathological changes of the oxygen-free
radicals in plasma and erythrocytes of AD patients as well.
A double-blind trial of HA on cognitive deterioration in 314 cases of benign senes-
cent forgetfulness, vascular dementia, and AD was reported by Ma et al.
91,92
The first
clinical trial was conducted by the double-blind method on 120 patients of age-
associated memory impairment with a memory quotient
<
100. The dosage was
0.03 mg i.m., b.i.d., for 14-15 days. The effective rates were 68.3% and 26.4%,
respectively, in the two groups. The second trial was conducted on 88 patients
of age-associated memory impairment. The dosage was 0.1 mg HA p.o., q.i.d.,
for 14-15 days. The effective rates for the treated and control groups were
68.2% and 34.1%, respectively. No significant side effects were observed except
for gastric discomfort, dizziness, insomnia, and mild excitement.
Another placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized trial of HA in treatment
of mild-to-moderate AD has been evaluated by Zhang et al.
93
Overall, 202 patients
aged between 50 and 80 years enrolled from 15 centers nationwide in China were
randomly divided into a HA treatment group (n
¼
100 p.o., 400 mg/day for
12 weeks) and a placebo group
ð
n
¼
102
Þ
to undergo 12 weeks of testing. There
was a significant difference between the two groups at 6 weeks, indicating that
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