Haemodialysis is required for ESRD (end-stage renal disease) patients who have impaired kidney regularly to remove the excess fluid and toxin accumulated in the bodies. However, most patients undergoing dialysis suffer from skin itching and poor blood circulation...etc. |
GLA and Hemodialysis
Studies have shown that GLA is effective in relieving itchiness of chronic kidney patients or patients undergoing haemodialysis.1-3
Deformability of red blood cells (RBC) has been reported to be impaired in chronic renal failure patients, especially in those undergoing maintenance haemodialysis; it is closely related to various conditions such as increased blood viscosity, decreased peripheral microcirculation, and a poor oxygen supply to organs, all of which may cause various complication and organs dysfunction. It is thus extremely important to improve this condition, one of and most important way is to increase the membrane fluidity of RBC.
A study which was published on an authoritative renal medical journal "NEPHRON"4 has shown that supplementation of GLA was beneficial to haemodialytic patients by
- Improving RBC deformability
- Correcting fatty acid abnormalities in RBC
- Increasing membrane fluidity in RBC and other circulating cells such as leukocytes, platelets and also in endothelial cells
because GLA improves microcirculation by:
- Changing the fatty acid composition in phospholipids in plasma and RBC membrane
- Producing anti-inflammatory PGE1 that expands blood vessels and reduce blood aggregation
- Lijima et al. Discussion of the mechanism for reducing itchiness by administration of gamma-linolenic acid (extracted from Mucor), 43rd J. Dialysis Medical Soc, 1998.
- Mori et al. Effectiveness of gamma-linolenic aci against pruritus in dialysis patient, 7th Osaka Hospital Society, 1993.
- Iijima et al. On the developmental mechanism of itchiness in hemodialysis patients from the viewpoint of membrane fluidity, 97th J Soc of Derm, 1998.
- S. Lijima et al. Oral Supplementation with g-linolenic acid extracted from Mucor circinelloides improves the deformability of red blood cells in Haemodialysis Patients, Nephron 2000; 86: 122-128.