Treat Pain With Sugar
 Reported October 26, 2005

By Vivian Richardson, Ivanhoe Health Correspondent

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A little sugar can help reduce chronic pain. No, this isn't the sugar you'll find in ice cream or soda pop, but it does have a sweet effect on pain conditions like fibromyalgia.

Researchers at the Annapolis Research Center for Effective CFS/Fibromyalgia Therapies tested how effective a certain kind of sugar would be at reducing chronic pain. The treatment goes along with the idea that treating the source of pain is more effective than masking the pain.

Jacob Teitelbaum, M.D., is the lead researcher for the study. He likens pain to the oil light on a car dashboard. When the oil light flashes red, we know the car is low on oil. Human pain is analogous to that light. "But, unfortunately, there is nothing written on it," Dr. Teitelbaum says. "Pain is a way of saying something desperately needs attention, whether it's a thorn in your foot or your hands on a hot stove."

Dr. Teitelbaum believes one not-so-obvious factor of painful conditions, like fibromyalgia, may be an energy crisis in the body's cells. That's where the sugar ribose comes in. Ribose is used by the cell's power-generators, mitochondria, to make energy molecules for the body. Ribose is actually one component of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). The body creates the sugar, however, some people are not able to create enough of their own ribose -- leading to less energy and more pain.

Dr. Teitelbaum and his team tested a ribose supplement on 40 patients with fibromyalgia and/or chronic fatigue syndrome. Each patient was given a 5-gram scoop of ribose, usually dissolved in water, three times a day. Later in the study, patients could opt to reduce the dosage to two times per day.

Preliminary results of the study show about two-thirds of the subjects reported increased energy and decreased pain. Researchers report 20 percent had a dramatic improvement in their pain levels. The average improvement in pain for all the patients was about 25 percent.

Dr. Teitelbaum says these results point to what may be one treatment that can be added to the regimen of relief for chronic pain sufferers. "This is one piece of the puzzle. It helps with the nutritional support," he says.

The next step for this research team is to design a larger, double blind study