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Old Fri Nov 12, 2010, 04:26 PM
akita akita is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 110
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marlene View Post
Thanks for the info on wheat grass. We'll have to give it try. John is so tired of getting phlebotomies. His serum FE is close to normal so this may be an option to get him to a normal level and stop phlebotomies.
Hi Marlene, that seems to be a quite similar situation to mine. Except the fact that you husband has already begun another therapy. Could you imagine to talk to the doctor/hospital where he gets the phlebotomies and to propose to take wheat grass additionally to the current therapy? Could be that his rest of iron load diminishes faster then and he does not need to come so often to phlebotomy as otherwise expected.. ?

Wheat grass is actually not an medicine but a sort of nourishment. It could happen, that it does not help at all. - The studies i know don`t give really answers to such a question.

One fact is the problem, that there exist wheat grass tablets, powder, extract, spray, fresh juice from home-gardenend wheat grass,capsules..

All these might have different concentrations and slightly varying compositions. For the iron chelating properties wheat grass must be very young. In the abovementioned MDS - Study they tookfresh juice from 5-7 days old plants inclusive stems (so in the abstract) In the presentation there is a slide with a diagramm which shows that 8 day old plants have the best iron chelating property. It depends perhaps on where you begin to count the days..
What concerns the "aqueous soluble wheat grass extract" mentioned in the study, we still do not know where the study-center bought it. It would be helpful if somebody of the study-centers involved would tell it. It would be important to have a correspondence with then. Email seems not really possible. A letter, that i wrote to one of the institutes in Calcutta, has no answer till now..

Tablets seem to be of different consistence. There have been two recent studies for patients with Thalassämia Major where the patients took wheat grass tablets, seemingly from different provider firms. The unsuccessfull was first, and after then - in 2010 the newer study was published, - successfull. They indicated the firm from where the tablets are, in their clinical review. These studies with tablets had a duration of one year. It seems that fresh wheat grass juice works faster.. I will send you this thalassaemia study with the link to the review in another posting. Additionally it should be cleared how much of the tablets - in case you would consider to take that - have to be taken. The patients from the indian study from where we know the enterprise from where the clinic bought the tablets were young - mostly children - the number of tablets should be counted in another way for adult "westeners" with much more bodyweight as they had.

Altogether, i would not very much welcome if somebody stops any chelating therapy in favour of wheat grass, feel unsure having adviced such strategies.

It would be wonderful

- To have the opportunity to discuss this issue of wheat grass on a broader basis here or perhaps in other patient forums so that there finally would be more information for all

- To write down our experiences with wheat grass in some form of study, and ift would not more as an internet formulary.

- Perhaps somebody wants to talk to his/her hematologist? I did it already tuesday in Vienna, sent him an email with a collection of the studies i found and asked him to help me with some study. i dont know when he will have time to read the studies, which are extra voluntary work for him, and what will be his answer..But i know also other hematologists in Vienna. Only don`t know to what extent they are too much involved in actual iron chelating studies..

Best regards,

Margarete

Last edited by akita : Fri Nov 12, 2010 at 05:29 PM.
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