Posted by sydney on February 4, 2003, at 10:24:13
I have a question that am trying to answer-- How does Huperzine affect the course of Schizophrenia. If you have any personal experience or insight, I'd love to hear about it.
Some Background:
Huperzine-A is a widely available health food supplement derived from the club moss Huperzia Serratta. It has been use for millenia in Chinese Herbal Medicine for fever, as a diuretic, for blood loss, and for irregular menstruation.. http://www.healthwell.com/healthnotes/Herb/Huperzia.cfm
More interestingly, Huperzine has been touted as an alternative therapy for Alzheimer's disease. In fact, the clinical efficacy and safety of huperzine has been shown through, placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized trials in the treatment of mild to moderate Alzheimer disease. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12181083&dopt=Abstract
My interest in Huperzine focuses on a different disease- schizophrenia.
Huperzine, besides being a potent acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, is an NMDA Glutamate receptor agonist. (See, e.g., www.kenes.com/cholinergic/abstracts/53.doc). There is much literature implicating the brain's glutamate receptors in schizophrenia. (See generally http://www.stenmorten.com/English/bns/glut_and_schizo3b.htm)
Since both schizophrenia and Huperzine implicate the neurotransmitter glutamate, I would expect that Huperzine would have SOME effect on schizophrenia. I don't know whether that effect would be positive or negative. If you can help me answer this question, I'd appreciate it.
poster:sydney
thread:139312
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030204/msgs/139312.html