I was asked today if I knew of a different kind of pain relief product for joint pain and I remembered about hops. Hops contains a natural pain relieving action from alpha acids that has been shown in research to help lower inflammation so I thought I would share some info on it for you in case.
Nutrigold sell a good hop product (not TGF note in case any of you are reading that so we need to find a TGF safe one!) and they have done a really good information sheet about it as usual – their educational stuff is brilliant, I find. Here’s a good quote to start you off:
HOW DO HOP ALPHA
ACIDS REDUCE
INFLAMMATION?
One of the first tests to show that hop alpha
acids have anti-inflammatory potential, was to
compare the alpha acid preparation with
known anti-inflammatory botanicals such as
ginger, turmeric, curcumin and willow.30
]Results from the in vitro screen measuring the
reduction of pro-inflammatory PGE-2 in human
gastrointestinal cells show that hop alpha
acids are the most effective at reducing the
levels of PGE-2 and at the lowest dose
compared to the other botanicals.32 Curcumin
and resveratrol reduced PGE-2 to similar levels
as hop alpha acids but at 10-100 fold higher
doses. Pharmaceutical controls aspirin and
ibuprofen were also used in these assays, with
only the hop alpha acid preparation out of all
the botanicals tested reducing PGE-2 to the
same levels as the NSAID controls. Other
studies have also demonstrated the antiinflammatory
power of hop alpha acids in
specific regulating inflammatory pathways.31
Further investigation has shown that hop alpha
acids also act on non-enzymatic pathways
of inflammation regulating other proinflammatory
markers such as tumour
necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α).32
Interesting, huh? Note the fact that hops matched ibuprofen at lowering at least one of the inflammation markers. Worth a go, I’d say.
You can read the full information sheet on pain here.
And here is their product, called Nurocyte.
Hope that gives you something new to go at if needed. Obviously, there can be many other factors why pain may not be resolving with normal interventions but this might be a new supplement to trial at least. Good luck!