Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is an excellent product; someone made the comment to be careful because of elevated levels of HA in cancer related events. Here is a clarification on this subject. Hyaluronic acid is produced continually throughout life, more so when very young and during pregnancy, when cancer rates are almost nonexistent. Yet the opinion prevails that somehow, taking oral HA might cause cancer. For the naïve viewer of the medical literature, there are many reports indicating elevated levels of HA are associated with the spread of tumors, what is called invasion. Tumor cells can mobilize and spread (become metastatic) by using HA as a kind of biological "slide and slide." However, taking oral HA supplements has little to do with this biological phenomenon. More HA shows up at tumor site because it is a healing agent. Anywhere there is a wound in your body, cells called fibroblasts make more HA. A recent study, conducted by researchers in Finland , investigated the role of hyaluronic acid in squamous cell carcinoma (oral cancer). "At the end of the follow-up (median 52 months) 43% of patients had died because of this type of cancer. A significant difference in overall survival and disease free survival was noticed between the patients with the different epithelial staining patterns for HA. The reduction of HA staining was associated with poor survival . These results suggest that HA is a prognostic marker in oral squamous cell carcinoma." Notice the words "prognostic marker." Since more HA is produced in tissues that are damaged by trauma, burns, toxic chemicals, or tumors, broken down (degraded) HA can be used to detect or measure the progression of tumors. This is akin to fire fighters who show up at fires. They are "associated with," but not considered a cause, of the fires. The fire fighters are there to put the fire out, just like HA is attempting to heal the damaged tissue. The difference between cause and association is easily understood by the following example. Let's say investigators want to know the causes of childhood pedestrian accidents. They collect data from all cases where children were hit by automobiles and they find that nearly all of the children were wearing tennis shoes. So, can we conclude that tennis shoes caused the accidents? Obviously not. The tennis shoes are only by-standers. So is HA. Here is a study to examine. Finnish researchers noted that "hyaluronic acid is involved in the growth and progression of malignant tumors." The researchers stated that "a high proportion of HA-positive cells of all cancer cells was significantly associated with deep tumor invasions, spreading to lymph nodes, and is associated with tumor progression and poor survival rate." Sounds pretty terrible, to the uninformed reader, doesn't it? Notice the report says HA is "involved" and "associated," but never indicates it was a cause of tumors or increased their severity. [Br J Cancer 79:1133-8, 1999] Hard paved roads are responsible for the severity of trauma when people are thrown out of cars in auto accidents, but we can't say the road caused the accident, can we? Recently a study examined the role of various components of the connective tissue (the goo in between living cells, like mortar in between bricks). Tumor tissue from 86 patients with breast cancer that had not spread to lymph nodes yet was examined by staining the tissues so each type of connective tissue component could be identified (versican, chondroitin sulfate, tenascin, and hyaluronan. Researchers at the Hanson Institute in Adelaide , Australia , said: "analyses indicated that elevated expression of versican predicted increased risk and rate of relapse in this cohort. Elevated expression of tenascin was predictive of increased risk and rate of death only...... neither chondroitin or hyaluronic acid were predictive of disease outcome in this group." [Clinical Cancer Research 10: 2491-98, 2004] Thank you