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ornery_chemist@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

… this sounds absurd to me, at least as stated wrt the enzymes “dissolving” the floaters. Your body does not like foreign proteases floating around. I am also skeptical that the enzymes would survive denaturing and pepsin et al. in the stomach and duodenum (empty stomach or not), get absorbed intact, and somehow not get inactivated by the immune system (again, rogue protease = bad). Not to say that your floaters weren’t reduced or even that the supplement wasn’t responsible; who knows what the metabolites do. Just, action of an intact enzyme itself seems unlikely. Corrections welcome; I’m not a biologist.

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ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I haven’t tried it yet, I was just mentioning the studies I’d come across. You can read this one here, which found that taking 3 pills a day reduced floaters in patients by 70%, with a B-scan ocular ultrasound seeming to confirm the results.

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- N4kt0@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Wow! I’m really tempted to try this myself. I’ve had bad floaters for as long as I can remember.
  
  I am curious about side effects, though. If these enzymes degrade collagen, that means they could induce or exacerbate arthritis, right?
  
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  - ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    AFAIK the enzymes only act upon collagen in scar tissue, not normal collagen in joints. If anything, there is some tentative evidence to suggest Bromelain potentially could be used to reduce the effects of some forms of osteoarthritis due to it being an anti-inflammatory.
    
    From that study:
    
    Bromelain has been used as treatment for a number of disease conditions, in addition to osteoarthritis of the knee and shoulder joints (Table 1). No serious adverse events have been reported with the consumption of either bromelain or pineapples in these studies. Adverse events that have been reported are mainly gastrointestinal (i.e. diarrhoea, nausea and flatulence), but have also included headache, tiredness, dry mouth, skin rash and allergic reactions (not specified).
    
    Should be noted, however, that there was a conflict of interest announced at the end:
    
    Dick Middleton is consultant to Lichtwer Pharma UK Ltd who manufacture bromelain. Steven Hicks was funded by Lichtwer for a post-graduate fellowship from 1998 to 2002.
    
    Still, the research seems to indicate that as long as the daily dose is 600mg or lower per day, it should be well tolerated as long as you’re not allergic to pineapple. Even above that, there should be no long-term negative health effects, only potentially acute side effects.
    
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