Your Christmas tree might ease arthritis pain _ in the future

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Your Christmas tree might ease arthritis pain _ in the future

By LEE BOWMAN

Scripps News Service

December 13, 2004

- Forget how lovely art thou branches. For the Scotch pine, the real treat

may lie in its bark. Finnish researchers say it contains anti-inflammatory

compounds that could be refined to treat arthritis and pain.

While similar compounds have been found in a variety of plants, Kaveli

Pihlaja, a professor of chemistry at the University of Turku in Finland,

believes his team is the first to find them in a pine widely used as a

Christmas tree.

" The preliminary study showed that highly purified preparations of pine bark

extract have potent anti-inflammatory effects, " Pihlaja said. " In the

future, this may mean that people with arthritis may ease their pain by

eating food supplements made from Christmas trees. "

The compounds are known to dampen inflammatory response from cells reacting

to disease or injury.

Pine bark extract has been used around the world as a folk medicine for

centuries to treat everything from wounds to coughs. Recent studies by other

scientists have found the extract may help high blood pressure, asthma,

heart disease and skin cancer, Pihlaja noted.

Pihlaja's study will be printed in the Dec. 29 issue of the Journal of

Agricultural and Food Chemistry. It found that the most highly purified

extract it produced inhibited production of two chemicals, nitric oxide and

prostaglandin E2 in distressed mouse cells that are linked to arthritis,

circulatory problems and pain, by 63 percent and 77 percent, respectively.

An online version of the study was posted last month.

The extract apparently inhibited prostaglandin production by blocking

activity of the enzyme COX-2, which is normally enhanced during an

inflammatory response. An entire class of arthritis drugs is built around a

mechanism to inhibit COX-2.

Despite the promising results in cell cultures, Pihlaja cautioned that they

are very preliminary. The specific extract used in the study has not been

tested in animals or humans. Until such studies are done, Pihlaja added, no

one knows how much of the compounds might be needed to provide health

benefits or what side effects there might be from them.

The extract did not show any sign of cell toxicity in the study, but the

researchers recommend that for now, people leave the ornaments and lights on

the Scotch pines and not try to brew their own pine bark extracts.

On the Net: www.acs.org

http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=PINEDRUGS-12-13-04 & cat=II