You are here: Home>Collections>Stroke

Herbal anti-stroke drug from CDRI stable

Vidushi Dubey, TNN Sep 13, 2005, 02.47am IST

LUCKNOW: The Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI) has come up with a herbal way to treat cerebral strokes. A herbal compound derived from turmeric has given encouraging results in clinical trials. The institute has now filed for a patent for the drug named "Herbal Medicament".

"Till now, there are no effective allopathic medicines for cerebral strokes," said Dr Ravi Dev of the department of neurosurgery, King George's Medical University (KGMU).

"This is a wonderful experiment for this life threatening disease," he added. "A stroke occurs when a blood vessel that brings oxygen and nutrients to the brain bursts or is clogged by a blood clot or some other mass.

Because of this rupture or blockage, part of the brain doesn't get the blood and oxygen it needs," he said. "Once deprived of oxygen, nerve cells in the affected area of the brain can't work and die within minutes.

And when nerve cells can't work, the part of the body they control can't work either. The devastating effects of a severe stroke are often permanent because dead brain cells aren't replaced."

"There are two main types of strokes. One, the ischemic stroke, is caused by blockage of a blood vessel; two, the haemorrhagic stroke, is caused by bleeding," said CDRI director CM Gupta.

"And we have worked on ischemic stroke as it is the most common type and accounts for about 70 to 80 per cent of all strokes. It occurs when a blood clot forms and blocks blood flow in an artery bringing blood to part of the brain," he added.

Clinical trials of the medicine have been conducted for ischemic stroke on mice, said Gupta. Elaborating, he said in one experiment mice were administered the medicine and then oxygen supply was stopped.

The results revealed that 70 to 80 per cent mice didn't suffer a stroke. In the other case, the process was reversed: First, the supply of oxygen to the mice was cut and then the medicine was administered.

The results showed that 30 to 40 per cent did not suffer cerebral stroke. "Now, we have transferred the technology to Themis, which will conduct the human trail of the medicine in three different phases.

The first is to detect the efficacy and safety of the medicine on humans, the second deals with hospital trails regarding the dose to be administered and the third deals with the multi-centre trial of the medicine, which also includes a clearance from the drug controller general of India.

A patent has also been filed for the medicine, added Gupta.