Preliminary testing of topical cetylated fatty acids (Puricell) in patients with psoriasis was conducted by the Dermatologist Medical Group of North County California. The results demonstrated an improvement in the patient’s psoriasis.

A clinical trial in which Puricell is being used to treat rosacea is now starting. If you are under the care of a dermatologist and are interested in participating please click here.

By far the vast majority of the research on cetylated fatty acids (CFA) has investigated its use in the treatment of osteoarthritis, both as a topical cream and as an oral dietary supplement. Results from these published clinical trials clearly demonstrate that this is an effective natural anti-inflammatory. Since inflammation also affects the skin, we at Hope Science Inc. feel that Puricell may have application in the field of dermatology and have decided to support research, such as the rosacea clinical trial above.

The clinical studies on Faster Than Glucosamine! are below:

Faster Than Glucosamine! has been studied with seventeen (17) animal and clinical studies, with six (6) studies presented at scientific meetings and four (4) published in pre-eminent scientific journals – two of which have been published in the prestigious medical journal, The Journal of Rheumatology.

This is recently completed research on oral cetylated fatty acids (CFA) for osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee. This was a double blind, placebo controlled trial with 93 patients.

Patients receiving CFA improved pain wise in comparison to those receiving the placebo pills. However a perhaps more interesting aspect of this study was that it measured an objective functional parameter in addition to pain, which of course is considered subjective in nature. Patients were tested prior to starting medication and then after 2, 4 and 8 weeks to see how far they could walk in 6 minutes. Presumably the pain of OA of the knee would cause one to walk slower and if pain relief occurred, one could then speed up and walk farther in the given time. Patients receiving CFA were able to walk 233 feet farther after just 2 weeks. And they continued to improve. After 8 weeks they walked on average 537 feet farther than they could at the beginning of the clinical trial. Just as impressive was the difference between the two groups, as those receiving the placebo did not improve and in fact were able to walk a slightly shorter distance after 8 weeks.

This clinical trial was presented at the Scripps Medical Conference for Integrated Medicine in San Diego in 2007. The paper won first prize in the “Original Research Category” out of the 90 papers presented.

This GAIT (Glucosamine/Chondroitin Arthritis Intervention Trial) is the largest multi center clinical trial completed to date for evaluating the efficacy and safety of glucosamine and chondroitin to treat osteoarthritis (OA). Conducted by the National Institute for Health (NIH), the trial was conducted at 16 medical sites across the country.

The conclusions of the study were: Glucosamine and chondroitin alone or in combination did not reduce pain effectively in the overall group of patients with osteoarthritis of the knee. Exploratory analysis suggests that the combination of glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate may be effective in the subgroup of patients with moderate-to-severe knee pain.

Our interpretations of the results are that glucosamine and/or chondroitin if they do in fact help, offer on average only mild relief. To be considered effective in this trial only a 20% reduction in pain was needed. The fact that only 20% improvement was needed and did not occur often enough in the majority of those receiving glucosamine and/or chondroitin to be statistically different than placebo is a telling statistic. We feel based on this and the other studies presented here that Faster Than Glucosamine! is indeed much more effective than glucosamine and/or chondroitin.

http://nccam.nih.gov/research/results/gait/qa.htm

JOURNAL of STENGHTH and CONDITIONING – 2005
Effects of CFA Topical Cream with Knee Osteoarthritis

In this study 40 patients with osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee were studied to see if applying CFA cream twice daily for a month would lead to an improvement in standing postural stability or the ability to simply stand in one place. Presumably knee pain due to OA would limit the ability to stand for extended periods. After one month testing revealed that the CFA group did improve significantly, whereas those receiving the placebo did not. This clinical trial reinforced the positive results obtained in an earlier OA trial using the topical CFA cream.

JOURNAL of STENGHTH and CONDITIONING – 2005
CFA Topical Cream Reduces Pain and Improves Function in Arthritis Patients

Faster Than Glucosamine! cream is comprised of CFA and a minimal amount of menthol (1.25%). This clinical trial was designed to test whether menthol affected the efficacy, since previous tests were conducted without menthol. Patients with either OA of the knee, elbow or wrist were tested. One week of treatment of the cream containing menthol was found to be similarly effective for reducing pain and improving functional performance as prior tests without menthol.

This double blind, placebo controlled clinical trial investigated whether CFA topical cream could improve the functional mobility of patients with OA of the knees, since these patients typically have impaired physical performance, presumably at least in part due to pain. Patients were tested at baseline and then 30 minutes later to determine the short-term affects and also 30 days later after applying the cream twice daily for long-term benefits.

The CFA cream was found to increase the range of motion of the knees, improve the ability of patients to ascend and descend stairs, made it easier to get up from a sitting position and improved the balance of patients stepping down.

Most interesting was the result that after only 30 minutes of the first application of CFA cream there were real improvements. Further improvements were recorded after a months use indicating that the cream provides not only short-term benefit, but also cumulative long-term benefit as well with regular daily use.

This placebo controlled clinical trial of CFA in oral form was the first to investigate whether CFA or Faster Than Glucosamine! could be used to treat osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee. The overall function of the knees, as well the range of motion improved in the patients receiving CFA. The success of this study paved the way for the other studies above.