To avoid the use of trade names under which this extract is marketed it will be referred to throughout as mussel extract. In all cases this reference specifically means the extract from the New Zealand Green-Lipped Mussel.

So far, it is not clear just how the extract works. However, as a result of research work, several features of this substance have been discovered. These features, which relate to its possible way of working in human and animal patients, are very interesting in both a medical and biological way. The research work has been conducted in animals and humans and has been carried out at research laboratories, university medical schools, drug company establishments, hospitals, clinics and even private homes right across the world — in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, United States of America, Germany, Switzerland, Holland and the United Kingdom.

One of the first interesting features to be noted was that any attempts to refine or fractionate (split up into components) the product resulted in a loss of the activity. In other words, trying to find out if the activity against arthritis was involved with any specific component or group of components by separating the ingredients stopped the product from working. This is an interesting and important feature in that it suggests that the activity is due to a combination of two or more of the ingredients, or perhaps ingredients involved in more than one group, working together. If this is the case, then it would make the production of a synthetic version of this product not only very difficult but also improbable.

This aspect is one which is not unusual in a natural substance that has therapeutic effects. It is quite reasonable to accept that combinations of compounds or ingredients in a substance of natural origin may be so unique or so complex that all our present technology may fail in attempts to duplicate them. It may also be true to say that it could well be these unique combinations which cause or give the therapeutic effect. Thus we have the situation here of a substance which is effective therapeutically in the form of a ‘crude’ extract, to use a pharmaceutical term, but which loses its effectiveness upon being split up or refined.

During experimental work with the mussel extract preparation on animal subjects it became evident that this substance worked in a manner which was different from that of the usual anti-arthritic drugs. In very generalized terms, the mussel extract gave different results in trials with animal subjects to those produced by synthetic drug preparations.

The results were such that it might just be that the extract is attacking the cause rather than the effect of arthritis! The expression ‘might just be’ has to be emphasized because as yet no definite proof exists to clarify the possibility. What could stimulate such a dramatic thought?

It is based on the speculation that, as the standard anti-inflammatory treatments are known only to attack the effect of the disorder, i.e., the inflammation, and as the extract does not appear to attack inflammation directly, then it may be that the mussel extract is penetrating below mere symptoms to the cause itself. The results which provoked this line of reasoning came about through trials using rats in which inflammatory conditions ‘similar’ to those found in arthritic conditions are created in the animals by various means. The important fact is that these are inflammatory conditions, and they respond to treatment by anti-inflammatory drugs, but they are not of arthritic origin. They do not respond to treatment with the mussel extract, which suggests that the extract does not possess direct anti-inflammatory properties. However, inflammatory conditions which are of arthritic origin do respond to treatment with the mussel extract, which suggests that the anti-inflammatory properties of the extract are secondary and, that it might be working on the origin of the inflammation rather than on the inflammation itself.

A feature of the mussel extract which might add weight to these suggestions is that the pain and discomfort associated with rheumatoid and osteo-arthritis are relieved in subjects taking this product. It does not seem that any analgesic properties are present in the extract and therefore it might be postulated that the cause of the pain is being removed. If these factors are, in due course, proved to be true, then a very important step forward in the treatment of arthritic disorders will have been demonstrated. Just consider the significance of the difference between treating these conditions by reducing or removing the cause compared with just masking the pain and discomfort by palliatives. Not only would the disease be relieved effectively, but its progression and resulting deterioration of the afflicted person might also be stopped.

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