Potential of Astaxanthin in the Treatment of Knee Osteoarthritis: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a major disabling disorder of the elderly population worldwide. Pharmacotherapy focuses on symptomatic relief through nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) or intra articular steroids, which are associated with significant adverse effects. Astaxanthin, a marine carotenoid, is a strong antioxidant with antiinflammatory properties which may be a safe and effective alternative treatment. Objectives: The purpose of the research was to look into how a commercially available astaxanthin supplement affected knee pain, stiffness, physical function and inflammatory markers in persons with moderate to severe knee osteoarthritis. Methods: Adults with knee pain (n = 71, >40 years old), radiologically diagnosed with moderate to severe knee OA, participated in the 8-weeks double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. Participants consumed either 12 mg astaxanthin capsule each day or placebo identical to astaxanthin capsule. Knee outcomes were assessed using the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) visual analog scale (normalized to scores of 0–100), serum hsCRP and IL-6 were measured. Outcomes were assessed at baseline, and at the end of 8th week. Results: Knee pain and physical function score improved in both groups with greater improvements for astaxanthin (p<0.05) than for placebo (p>0.05) group. Total WOMAC score improved significantly in the astaxanthin (177.36 ± 12.6 to 166.95 ± 12.96) group than for placebo group (177.24 ± 12.45 to 175.09 ± 12.21). Serum hsCRP and IL-6 also reduced significantly in the astaxanthin group. Conclusions: Astaxanthin consumption resulted in modest subjective improvements in knee pain, stiffness, and physical function in adults with moderate to severe knee OA with improvements in inflammatory markers.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.009 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".