Researchers from University of South Florida College of Medicine (Tampa) and the Medical College of Georgia (Augusta) have found that a dietary supplement made out of Blueberry, green tea, vitamin D3 and carnosine extracts may protect against stroke damage.
Washington, Mar 5 : Researchers from University of South Florida College of Medicine (Tampa) and the Medical College of Georgia (Augusta) have found that a dietary supplement made out of Blueberry, green tea, vitamin D3 and carnosine extracts may protect against stroke damage.
The study has found that the nutritional supplement product called NutraStem or NT-020 may play a crucial role in protecting against brain damage.
NutraStem, developed by Natura Therapeutics, Inc, was designed to stimulate the proliferation of adult stem cells, which have the potential to develop into most tissues and bone cells in the body and have the capacity to migrate toward problem or damaged areas.
The researchers conducted double blind procedure using animal models; one animal group received the supplement for two weeks before undergoing surgical stroke while the second group did not receive the dietary supplement.
"We explored how increasing the nutritive diet through NT-020 supplementation might render a therapeutically potent neurogenesis following stroke," said Cesar V. Borlongan, lead author, the Medical College of Georgia.
The findings revealed that the group receiving NutraStem had substantially reduced neural damage in the brain and demonstrated reduced motor deficits.
"Our study found robust neuroprotective effects of the NT-020 formula," said Borlongan.
"Two weeks of NutraStem therapy lessened stroke-induced behavioral deficits, reduced stroke-induced infarcts and promoted the birth of new neurons," he added.
"The numbers of new neurons found in the damaged brain of the treated rats was significantly higher," said co-author Paula Bickford, PhD, of the University of South Florida College of Medicine and co-founder of Natura Therapeutics, Inc.
"An important feature of our results is that the combination of agents used was 100 times more potent than previously published study results that examined each of the individual ingredients used by themselves," she added.
The study appears online in the high-impact journal Rejuvenation Research.
ANI