Updated Review
Published: July 24, 2023
As of July 2023 we found no new information that would warrant any TOE grade changes
Updated Review
Published: August 30, 2021
Since our review, we found a published trial of Lunasin in PALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis 2019;20:285-293). This trial treated 50 PALS with Lunasin for 1 year and compared ALS progression on Lunasin to that of matched historical controls. No evidence of slowing, stopping, or reversing ALS was seen. Many patients had GI side effects, including cases of constipation so severe they had to be hospitalized. Based on this new information, we change our TOE “Trials” Grade to F, and our TOE “Risks” Grade to D.
Key Information
Click on any letter grade below for more info:
Mechanism Grade: C
Preclinical Trials Grade: U
Cases Grade: C
Trials Grade: F
Risks Grade: D
Published: Sep 2014
Lunasin has interesting mechanisms of action that might be useful in treating ALS, and it appears reasonably safe although some forms of it are expensive. While some PALS have reported improvements on lunasin, we have thus far found only one in which we were able to independently validate these improvements. This patient had atypical features for ALS including a history of myasthenia gravis, which can produce weakness that improves spontaneously. At this time there is not enough evidence to recommend that PALS take lunasin. A reasonable next step would be a small pilot trial of lunasin with validated ALS diagnoses and outcome measures.
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