Phosphatidylserine: Dosage and Side Effects
Phosphatidylserine (PS) 300 mg daily for six to eight weeks should be followed by 100 mg daily for maintenance therapy, based on the notion that a smaller dose is sufficient after the neuronal cell membranes have been saturated with phosphatidylserine. Astonishingly, the research studies indicate virtually no side effects. This makes the physician in me slightly nervous, because the medication without any side effects has yet to be invented. In particular, the possible side effects of long-term daily intake have not been properly assessed. If phosphatidylserine is used by tens of thousands of people, it is likely that we will hear more about its side effects, especially side effects that occur in only a small subgroup of vulnerable individuals.
Given the fair amount of information available on the use of PS to treat mild memory loss, it is somewhat surprising that it has not caught the public’s attention. A large proportion of patients with mild memory loss who come to our Memory Disorders Center take vitamin E or ginkgo biloba, but hardly anyone takes PS. One reason may be that there has been no large-scale clinical trial in Alzheimer’s disease, which is necessary for any compound to reach the headlines as a treatment for
memory loss. But the fact that most phosphatidylserine studies were conducted in people who had mild memory loss, and not clinical disorders like Alzheimer’s disease, is an added plus for your purposes.
Hydergine: The First FDA-Approved Antidementia Medication
Hydergine is derived from ergot alkaloids (present in rye fungus) that are also used in antimigraine medications. The drug company Sandoz (now part of Novartis) began to study hydergine after it learned that ergot alkaloids were used by nontraditional practitioners to lower a pregnant mother’s blood pressure during childbirth. Sandoz’s goal was to use hydergine to lower blood pressure and the risk of stroke; this didn’t pan out, but they did manage to get it approved as a treatment for dementia.
From the 1980s into the early 1990s, I saw a large number of patients suffering from dementia who took hydergine. General practitioners or internists usually prescribed it to these patients. On occasion, I myself prescribed hydergine to patients with dementia when, out of desperation, family members insisted that I prescribe something, anything, even if there wasn’t any solid evidence supporting the medication’s use.
At that time, hydergine was the only medication approved in the United States for the treatment of dementia. If the data on this compound were presented to today’s hypervigilant FDA, it probably would not win approval as a memory-enhancing medication. In the patients with dementia who took hydergine, I observed the following:
no change in memory
a rare patient or two who became more alert with increased mental arousal
no obvious side effects at the standard doses recommended in the Physicians’ Desk Reference (PDR)
In other words, I thought of it as similar to placebo, but in the absence of other available options, it wasn’t such a bad choice. My approach in prescribing such a medication was to make the patient and family members fully aware that the chances of significant improvement were extremely low, but that it might be worth a shot given the lack of other available options.
Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
and Enhance Memory Power
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