Balkrishna Acharya, Bhatt Aarti Ben, Singh Pratima, Haldar Swati, Varshney Anurag
Drug Discovery and Development Division, Patanjali Research Institute, Roorkee-Haridwar Road, Haridwar 249405, Uttarakhand, India.
Department of Allied and Applied Sciences, University of Patanjali, NH-58, Haridwar 249405, Uttarakhand, India.
J Herb Med. 2021 Oct;29:100472. doi: 10.1016/j.hermed.2021.100472. Epub 2021 May 21.
Treatment for COVID-19 was ambiguous in the beginning of the pandemic. At that time, the conventional medical system was grappling to cope with the rapidly spreading pandemic. The potential of Ayurveda, one of the branches of traditional Indian medicine (TIM), with a 5000 year old history, employing medicines derived from plants and other natural sources, against COVID-19 has been explored through a comparative retrospective open-label study.
Reported here are the remedial effects of Ayurvedic medicines alone or in combination with Allopathic treatment on 59 asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic COVID-19 patients, across multiple COVID-19 care centers in Ahmedabad, India. The patients were confirmed for COVID-19 infection through RT-qPCR of nasopharyngeal swabs. With informed consents from the patients, the sourced data was divided into 'Allopathic and Ayurvedic' [AlloAyur] (n = 41) and 'Ayurvedic only'[Ayur] (n = 18) groups, based on the type of treatment the patients decided to receive, that is Ayurvedic medicines with Allopathic treatment or Ayurvedic medicines alone, respectively. Ayurvedic medicines included oral doses and nasal drops; the dosage and regime were decided based on the recommendations from Ayurvedic texts. The Allopathic medicines included Azithromycin, Vitamin-C and anti-histamines. Acetaminophen was also administered when necessary, by the attending physician. The patients were observed for symptomatic improvement.
Primary outcome of this study was the symptomatic relief from COVID-19. Data collected over a period of two months, showed that more patients exhibited symptomatic relief in Ayur goup (83.33 %) than in the AlloAyur group (48.78 %) within the first 13 days of treatment. No visible adverse effects were observed. This indicated faster and safe symptomatic resolution among those treated with Ayurvedic medicines alone.
Patients receiving only Ayurvedic medicines on average were symptomatically relieved faster than those receiving Allopathic and Ayurvedic medicines together.
在新冠疫情初期，针对新冠肺炎的治疗并不明确。当时，传统医疗系统正努力应对迅速蔓延的疫情。阿育吠陀医学是印度传统医学（TIM）的一个分支，有着5000年的历史，使用源自植物和其他天然来源的药物。通过一项比较性回顾性开放标签研究，探讨了阿育吠陀医学对抗新冠肺炎的潜力。
本文报告了在印度艾哈迈达巴德的多个新冠肺炎护理中心，阿育吠陀药物单独使用或与西医治疗联合使用对59例无症状或轻症新冠肺炎患者的治疗效果。通过对鼻咽拭子进行逆转录定量聚合酶链反应（RT-qPCR）确诊患者感染新冠肺炎。在获得患者知情同意后，根据患者决定接受的治疗类型，即分别接受阿育吠陀药物与西医治疗或仅接受阿育吠陀药物治疗，将来源数据分为“西医与阿育吠陀”[AlloAyur]组（n = 41）和“仅阿育吠陀”[Ayur]组（n = 18）。阿育吠陀药物包括口服剂量和滴鼻剂；剂量和疗程根据阿育吠陀医学典籍的建议确定。西医药物包括阿奇霉素、维生素C和抗组胺药。主治医生必要时也会给予对乙酰氨基酚。观察患者症状改善情况。
本研究的主要结果是新冠肺炎症状缓解。在两个月内收集的数据显示，在治疗的前13天内，Ayur组（83.33%）出现症状缓解的患者比AlloAyur组（48.78%）更多。未观察到明显的不良反应。这表明仅接受阿育吠陀药物治疗的患者症状缓解更快且更安全。
平均而言，仅接受阿育吠陀药物治疗的患者症状缓解速度比同时接受西医和阿育吠陀药物治疗的患者更快。
