If you are into the supplements, it would appear "NAC" is a good choice. Little risk, low cost, proven benefit. Even, if the benefit comes from the placebo effect. If it works for you, it works! From PulmCCM: "N-acetylcysteine (NAC) Improves COPD Outcomes" This is a weak study with a tantalizing result, that a cheap and relatively safe therapy could prevent COPD exacerbations. Authors suggest that the higher dose of N-acetylcysteine they used was responsible for their positive findings (as opposed to previous negative studies using 600 mg/day), noting that NAC’s antioxidant effects really only kick in at 1200 mg / day. Since people with emphysema (the more common phenotype of COPD) usually also have mucus impaction of their small airways, the mechanistic story that NAC’s anti-inflammatory and mucolytic properties open up these airways (improving FEF 25-75) has face plausibility. Combined with the abundant supportive basic science data and enough clinical study data to be interesting, you’d have to be a medical Grinch to dismiss N-acetylcysteine out-of-hand as having no conceivable benefit in the treatment of COPD.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Aug 2013 15:31:58 +0000
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