DAAN Chinese Herbs and Acupuncture

Researchers are studying how herbs can be used to treat epilepsy:

“Schachter has hit upon a compound that does just that. And he has done so by drawing upon the same centuries-old botanical tradition that yielded the drug digitalis. Applying modern methods of drug discovery, he and colleagues have identified a compound derived from the spiky-looking Chinese club moss that when tested in rodents, had the power to prevent seizures. The seizures are considered to be representative of the highly debilitating grand mal, or tonic–clonic, episodes that many patients with epilepsy experience, and which are often refractory to treatment. In the fall, he hopes to launch a small clinical trial of the compound, huperzine A.

Multitasker

It will not be the substance’s first foray into the medical arena. For centuries, Chinese healers have been using extracts of huperzine A to quell inflammation and fever and, more recently, to treat schizophrenia. Clinical trials are under way in China and the United States to test huperzine A’s power against Alzheimer’s disease. Meanwhile, the compound is being widely marketed as an over-the-counter memory aid. But in all these years, it has not been used for the treatment of epilepsy.

Schachter, who has been seeking new methods for treating epilepsy for more than 20 years, was alerted to the promise of botanicals several years ago when he was invited by David Eisenberg to become associate director of clinical research at the Osher Institute. Eisenberg, the Bernard Osher associate professor of medicine at HMS, had been pursuing the use of botanicals in the treatment of cancer and introduced Schachter to plant-minded colleagues in this country and East Asia. Schachter set out to find herb-derived compounds for the treatment of epilepsy “using the same methods that were being used to identify potentially efficacious pharmaceuticals,” he said.”

Tags: Disease //