Fisetin for Neuroprotection
Preclinical neuroprotection is striking; human evidence is absent.
Overview
Verdict
How It Works
Dosing & Protocol
Typical dose
- Recommended dose
- Not established; neuroprotection is demonstrated only in animal models, at doses without a human equivalent
- Expected timeframe
- Not established
Protocol
- form
- Not applicable
- duration
- Not applicable
- co factor
- Evidence is insufficient. In animal models fisetin reduces neuronal loss after stroke, traumatic brain injury and in Alzheimer, Parkinson and Huntington models, acting through the glutathione pathway, reduced neuroinflammation and inhibition of 5-lipoxygenase. The preclinical case is genuinely broad. What is missing is any human trial: no randomised study has tested fisetin for stroke recovery, neurodegenerative disease or any neurological outcome. Fisetin has poor oral bioavailability and limited blood-brain barrier penetration in people, which is the usual point at which neuroprotective candidates fail.
- titration
- Not applicable
- starting dose
- Not applicable
Evidence
What the studies say
The Flavonoid Fisetin Promotes ERK-Dependent Long-Term Potentiation and Enhances Memory
Maher P, Akaishi T, Abe K
Fisetin activated the ERK-CREB signalling pathway in cultured neurons, facilitated long-term potentiation in rat hippocampal slices, and improved object-recognition memory in mice given oral fisetin. Effects were blocked by MEK inhibitors, confirming ERK dependence.
Safety
Caveats
Neurological symptoms need medical assessment, not supplementation - sudden weakness, speech difficulty or facial droop is a stroke and needs emergency care, and progressive symptoms need neurology input while treatable causes can still be found. Established disease-modifying and secondary-prevention treatments should never be delayed or replaced. Fisetin has no established safe long-term dose in humans, no upper intake level and no data in pregnancy, breastfeeding or children - avoid in all. It inhibits cytochrome P450 enzymes and P-glycoprotein in vitro, so interactions with antiepileptics, anticoagulants, chemotherapy and other narrow-therapeutic-index drugs are plausible but unquantified - relevant because antiplatelet and anticoagulant therapy is standard after stroke, and fisetin has its own antiplatelet activity in vitro. Stop before surgery.
Less likely to help if
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