Question:
A product called Nu-Eyes, whose active ingredient is acetylcarnosine, is
claimed to cure most eye diseases, including cataracts.
I am very skeptical of such claims. Does anyone have information about
clinical trials of this product?
Answer:
It seems that Babizhayev et al's paper justifies further research, with
significant improvements detected over controls for 76 eyes. Dr Judy refers
to this study as "very small", but "very small" generally makes it harder to
detect significance. Whether NAC can modify damage (due to glycation, or
disulfide bonding, or discarded insoluble short polypeptides, or whatever
else is involved in cataract formation), deserves investigation.
Unfortunately, only the one study has been done, it was done by someone with
a financial interest in the drops, it has not be replicated by independant
researchers and the drops have not been tested for effectiveness or side
effects by any regulatory agencies. Given all that I cannot ethically
recommend those drops to any patient as a treatment for cataract.
