Author: Shyama Rajagopal
Publication: The Hindu
Date: September 5, 2011
URL: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2236351.ece
Personalised Ayurvedic interventions have
demonstrated clinically significant improvement in rheumatoid arthritis on
a par with allopathy treatment with the added advantage of lesser side-effects,
according to a study. The study was conducted by the University of Washington,
Seattle, and the University of Los Angeles, California, with funding from
the National Institutes of Health in the U.S. and the Arya Vaidya Pharmacy
(AVP), Coimbatore.
The project, to evaluate the efficacy of Ayurvedic
medicines, was a randomised double-blinded, placebo (inert tablets)-controlled
study, which is the gold standard for clinical research in modern medicine,
said the research team headed by P. Ram Manohar, Director, Research, AVP and
principal investigator (Indian side).
"We cannot make any tall claims with
the results since it was a pilot study and the sample size was small. However,
the study got a major stimulus when Dr. Edzard Ernst, the first professor
of complementary medicine, called it a blueprint for research in Ayurveda,"
Dr. Ram Manohar told The Hindu over telephone.
The study was published in the Journal of
Clinical Rheumatology in June 2011 can be accessed through PubMed of the United
States National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health.
This provides the Ayurveda stream of medical management with a much-needed
boost for its hitherto lack of evidence-based medicine techniques.
The nine-month treatment and evaluation period
had three groups with about 15 patients each, who were treated with the focus
on rheumatoid arthritis. While one group was given only Ayurvedic medicines
along with a placebo of allopathic medicine, another group was administered
only allopathic medicines with placebos of Ayurvedic medicines and the third
group was given a combination of Ayurveda and allopathic medicines.
Even the doctors prescribing the medicines
were not aware of the medicines being given, said K. G. Ravindran, treating
physician at the AVP, who was part of the research project.
It was a challenge to make standardised placebos
for Ayurvedic medicines, said Reshmi Sarin, research co-ordinator at the AVP.
In fact, the PubMed abstract mentions the development of the placebos as a
unique feature of the study. Different combinations of internal and external
Ayurvedic medicines were prescribed to the patients but the allopathic treatment
consisted of standard doses of the drug Methotrexate. All patients were treated
in the out-patient ward and no massage or 'dhara' or any other in-patient
treatment method was applied.
While the study was specific to rheumatoid
arthritis, it also looked into whether complex Ayurvedic interventions could
be studied in a clinical trial. The double-dummy, double-blind randomised
clinical study has clearly shown the feasibility of further studies of this
kind.
With a grant of Rs. 1.2 crore, the three-year
study, begun in 2005 and completed in 2008, was fully published in June. Two
milestones were a poster presentation of the study in November 2010 at the
annual scientific meeting of the American College of Rheumatology and a research
letter in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.
Daniel E. Furst, Master of American College
of Rheumatology, was the clinical lead investigator who designed the study.
Another principal investigator from the U.S. was Cathryn Booth, University
of Washington, Seattle. P.R. Krishna Kumar, MD of the AVP was the project
director, and Dr. Manorama Venkatraman, University of Washington, Seattle,
was the programme director.
