An animal nutrient can ease stiff joints, discovers Hazel Cavendish
JEAN LOCKYER had been running her animal feed business in the New Forest for 35 years when an attack of German measles brought on a crippling bout of arthritis in her hips, hands and feet. The symptoms were so severe, she feared she might have to sell up and retire.
She voiced her worries to a lorry driver who regularly delivered animal nutrients, and he came up with an unorthodox suggestion. Why didn't she try methyl sulphonyl methane (MSM), the remedy that she was selling for the treatment of stiff joints in dogs and horses ? "It does wonders for people," he told her.
Mrs Lockyer, 56, reasoned that if it cured the inflamed hooves of ponies, MSM might just help her. "I was in such pain, I was prepared to try anything," she says. "I faced a future in a wheelchair - and the end of Lockyer's Stores."
Resorting to pets' remedies may seem far-fetched, but rheumatism and arthritis affects 11 million people in Britain, and there is a huge call for alternative treatments. One medical researcher describes MSM as "something that has been right under our noses for 30 years". Its rapid effect in relieving joint inflammation and pain is causing widespread interest, especially in Europe, America and Canada.
MSM appears to have had a dramatic effect on Mrs Lockyer. After just 10 days, one of her children said that she was walking like an ordinary person, instead of shuffling along. "In six months, my bent fingers straightened and within a year my reddened joints returned to normal." Eleven years later, she is still running her shop.
MSM is a natural sulphur-based nutrient sold under a world-wide patent and available over the counter in animal food stores in Britain. In the past two years it has been marketed as a "nutritional supplement" for human use under the name Supasulf.
Patricia Culver-Williams, a district nurse and midwife, suffered severe arthritis in one knee after the removal of the cartilage. Having successfully treated her arthritic keeshond dog with MSM, she decided to try Supasulf.
"A consultant had told me I would need a replacement joint very soon, but a salt spoonful of Supasulf every second day has banished that grinding discomfort. The pain returns if I stop taking it, so I never go anywhere without my 'horse medicine'."
As well as its value as an organic sulphur compound - which aids the repair of damaged tissue - MSM is non-toxic and has been shown to have no side effects. It occurs naturally and abundantly in milk, raw meat, fish and fresh vegetables, but it is volatile and is easily lost during cooking, processing and refining.
Joseph Gaugas, a pharmacologist and senior research fellow for the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Foundation, has researched MSM for almost 10 years. "The human body needs 850mg of dietary sulphur each day and a proportion of the population is not getting sufficient organic sulphur in its food," he writes in a scientific paper.
"MSM is a nutrient which donates sulphur to help in the repair of damaged tissue membranes, especially in diseased or damaged joints and in tendons and, thus, in the resolution of inflammation and localised pain. After ingestion it stays in the blood for considerably longer than other organic sulphurs."
Although several doctors and scientists in this country have researched the biochemistry and structure of the white powder, little has appeared in Britain's mainstream medical journals. Dr Anthony Clarke, consultant rheumatologist at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases in Bath, says: "I find this surprising. Doctors dealing with serious diseases are always interested in potentially unconventional treatments."
However, many doctors are concerned at the lack of scientific trials to establish MSM's benefits for humans. Edzard Ernst, professor of alternative medicine at Exeter University, said: "Trials on humans must be undertaken before this substance can be taken seriously."
But, despite approaches from several drug companies, Dr Robert Hershler, 76, the American chemist who discovered the formula - originally the brainchild of a Russian scientist working in Germany a century ago - and who owns the patent, does not want it to be bought up, withdrawn from the market and subjected to expensive trials.
He argues that trials would so increase its cost that MSM would become too expensive for most people.
"It has been passed by the Food and Drug Administration as a nutritional supplement," he says. "We can provide it to the public very cheaply. You can compare it to vitamin C: doctors do not prescribe it, as sucking a lemon does not constitute using a drug - so anyone can obtain it over the counter. That is the way I want MSM regarded."
