Last week we enjoyed a very successful round table session. It was interesting to hear all the different talks which explored the journey of micronutrients from the research bench to the patient bedside, and the hurdles that are faced in that process.
The talks started lively discussions and led attendees to gain new insight and perspectives. These conversations continued well into dinner, which to us signalled a job well done.
We started halfway between bench and bedside. As the session was kicked off by keynote speaker Mette Berger, Prof. Hon. Faculty of Medicine & Biology at Lausanne University, who elaborated on the efforts she made to make the Swiss government aware of issues in their micronutrient supplementation regulations. These issues result in a higher occurrence of deficiencies in Switzerland, and could be among the reasons why the country suffered from a higher Covid mortality.
She walked us through the assumptions made by government institutions, and the efforts she made and continues to make, to get regulations to reflect scientific developments.
The following discussion highlighted the issues of different visibility of micronutrients for the public, following the example of calcium and magnesium competition, which the public is not aware of. Mette Berger also highlighted the role of patient associations as the initiators of changes and the voice of the people. The discussion ended with a discussion on the reliability of micronutrient measurement, which ties in well with the second talk.
Dr. Angélique de Man, Intensivist at VU Medisch Centrum, shed light on her ongoing research. She stressed the importance of accurate measurement and a thorough understanding of the roles and interplays between micronutrients. As supplementing a single micronutrient at high dosage without understanding the downstream effects, can be detrimental for the patient.
She highlighted that most trials on vitamin C are very similar in design, with no clear reason why. However, the results are still vastly different. She elaborated that this is probably due to differences in patient groups, and that research needs to take a step back. Back to the drawing board, to first understand what repletion is needed per disease.
She also showed data from her recent research, which looked at detecting intracellular levels of vitamin C as a more reliable detection method. These results showed her method works, and she is currently applying for funding to continue this work.
Our final speaker was Dr. Claudia Vollbracht, medical science specialist at Pascoe. Her talk centered around scurvy, as the treatment of this disease is more a bedside-to-bench story. The first research started because people became inexplicably sick. The research has continued since,and Pascoe has built up a lot of expertise regarding a derivative of vitamin C called ascorbate.
Claudia elaborated on how Pascoe developed a formula of this IV vitamin C solution that is more stable and has a more neutral pH than other similar products. She also compared the dosage of their product to the amount of vitamin C that many animals naturally produce, and went into the guidelines and regulatory barriers that make dosing difficult.
The following discussion went into the most recent trials and their results, the specifics of Pascoe's product, and the difficulties faced when trying to change regulations.