Black currant anthocyanins normalized abnormal levels of serum concentrations of endothelin-1 in patients with glaucoma

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Endothelin-1.

Their recent study, which involved a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-masked 24-month trial (Ophthalmologica 2012;228:26-35), revealed that oral administration of black currant anthocyanins (BCACs) slowed down the visual field deterioration and elevation of ocular blood flow of open-angle glaucoma (OAG).

To elucidate the underlying mechanisms of these BCAC-induced effects, as possible factors affecting glaucomatous optic neuropathy, changes of serum endothelin-1 (ET-1), nitric oxide (NO), and antioxidative activities were examined in the present study.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

From among patients with OAG who participated in the randomized, placebo-controlled, double-masked trial, serum specimens were obtained from BCAC-treated (n=19) or placebo-treated (n=19) patients at baseline and every 6 months.

Healthy volunteers (n=20) with age and gender matching the patients were used as a control.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

Because people in this Endothelin-1 study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Blinding on both sides kept the participants and researchers unaware of who received Endothelin-1.

Some participants received a placebo instead of Endothelin-1, giving a reference point.

Serum ET-1 concentration, [NO2(-)] and [NO2(-) + NO3(-)] levels, advanced oxidation protein products (AOPP), and antioxidant activities were measured by using commercially available kits.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Analysis of Variance, Anthocyanins, Antioxidants, Case-Control Studies, Endothelin-1, Glaucoma, Open-Angle and Nitric Oxide.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Endothelin-1.

Results are reported in around 5 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2013 (Journal of ocular pharmacology and therapeutics : the official journal of the Association for Ocular Pharmacology and Therapeutics), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Endothelin-1 compound page, all human trials.