Palm tocotrienol complex found to support renal function in diabetic patients

10 Oct 2018 --- The use of EVNol SupraBio bioenhanced full spectrum palm tocotrienol complex among diabetic nephropathy patients significantly reduced serum creatinine levels, potentially averting the progression of renal impairment. This is according to the findings of a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial was conducted by a group of researchers from the School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Monash University Malaysia, to investigate the effect of ExcelVite’s EVNol SupraBio on diabetic nephropathy (also known as diabetic kidney disease).

The study is published in Nutrients, and focuses on diabetic nephropathy, one of the major complications for diabetes and the leading cause of end-stage renal failure worldwide.

“Tocotrienol has been proven to have 40-60 times more potent antioxidant activity compared to tocopherol and has superior anti-inflammatory, neuroprotective and cardioprotective properties. However, the renoprotective effect of tocotrienol in type 2 diabetes patient is currently limited and we are glad the researchers chose EVNol SupraBio to investigate the effect of tocotrienol in delaying diabetic nephropathy,” says Diyanah Roslan, Nutritionist at ExcelVite.

“While tocotrienol is well-known for its unique biological activities, there is limited research conducted on the renoprotective effect of tocotrienol in type 2 diabetes. This is the first human clinical study to explore the benefit of tocotrienol on diabetic nephropathy,” Roslan tells NutritionInsight.

Kidney damage rarely happens in the first ten years of diabetes. Kidney failure usually happens 15 to 25 years after the first symptoms of diabetes. Since diabetic nephropathy takes many years to develop, 45 patients with type 2 diabetes for an average of 18.5 years were selected for this study. Their microalbuminuria-positive result was ensured to be due to diabetic nephropathy alone (microalbuminuria is an early sign for kidney disease). They were randomly divided into a placebo group or an intervention group receiving EVNol SupraBio.

The blood serum of the patients was measured at baseline and after a short 8-weeks supplementation of either 400mg/day EVNol SupraBio or placebo. 

No significant changes were observed in the level of HbA1c, serum AGE, sRAGE, Nε-CML and Cystatin C in the diabetic nephropathy patients in this study. This was the opposite of a previous study on newly-induced diabetic rat model that showed supplementation of EVNol SupraBio significantly reduce the aforementioned biomarkers. 

As per the researchers, the lack of significant effects observed in this study could be due to the long duration of diabetes among the patients (average 18.5 years), causing a long-term and difficult-to-reverse accumulation of these biomarkers in the body. This might have hindered the reduction and led the researchers to recommend a longer supplementation time for the tocotrienol to take effect. 

Nevertheless, supplementation of EVNol SupraBio significantly reduced serum creatinine compared to placebo. Therefore, the researchers concluded that EVNol SupraBio might be useful in addition to the current treatment for diabetic nephropathy. 

“Patients who suffered from end-stage renal failure usually have to undergo dialysis or kidney transplant to survive, which is why it’s important to search for a therapeutic agent that can help to slow down the progression of diabetic nephropathy,” Roslan tells NutritionInsight. “This study demonstrates that supplementation of EVNol SupraBio for two months significantly reduces the creatinine level in the patients, hence potentially slowing down the progression of diabetic nephropathy.”

“Apart from neuroprotection, EVNol SupraBio also showed a positive result in terms of liver health. Two published human clinical studies on Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) show this bio-enhanced palm tocotrienol complex is able to mitigate fatty liver in NAFLD subjects. In the meantime, another study demonstrates that EVNol SupraBio manages to improve the Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) score among the liver disease patients,” she adds.