Critical Need for Clinical Trials: An Example of a Pilot Human Intervention Trial of a Mixture of Natural Agents Protecting Lymphocytes Against TNF-α Induced Activation of NF-κB

ABSTRACT

Humans typically consume “natural agents” that are believed to be chemoprotective and are known to decrease inflammation biomarker NF-κB in vitro; however, no intervention studies in humans have been done to date. This commentary documents the in vivo results as a powerful example for supporting the superiority of a complex mixture of natural agents. Human volunteers consumed two 500 mg capsules (BID) containing a mixture of natural agents for a period of 2 weeks, and blood samples were collected pre- and post-intervention. The purified lymphocytes were subjected to ex-vivo exposure to TNF-α or kept as untreated control. The mean NF-κB DNA binding activity was increased upon TNF-α treatment in pre-intervention samples; however, TNF-α was unable to induce NF-κB in post-intervention samples, suggesting that the mixture of four important natural agents could be useful to protect humans against oxidative stress.