Can Dabur Chyawanprash or panchkosha meditation help with Covid? Unusual trials on in India

According to ICMR data, 63 Covid-related studies are in the clinical trial stage, with 15 testing the efficacy of Ayurvedic and homoeopathic treatments.

Medical workers collecting samples for Covid-19 in New Delhi | Representational Image | Photo: Suraj Singh Bisht | ThePrint

New Delhi: From Chyawanprash to a combination of homoeopathic medicines, the search for a vaccine and treatment for Covid-19 in India is seeing a host of unusual trials.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)’s Clinical Registry Trial of India (CTRI), 63 studies related to Covid-19 are in the clinical trial stage.

The list included studies on the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, the experimental antiviral drug remdesivir, and anti-HIV medicines lopinavir and ritonavir.  

Of these 68 trials, 15 are on the efficacy of Ayurvedic and homoeopathic medicines as preventive and remedial treatment for Covid-19. Among them are some that would surprise you.  

Can Chyawanprash prevent Covid?

That is the question Dabur is hoping to find the answer to. 

Chyawanprash, the Ayurvedic mixture many Indians have grown up eating, is being tested as a preventive treatment for Covid-19. Chyawanprash is a cooked Ayurvedic mixture of sugar, honey and various herbs and spices.

The study, titled Clinical study on Dabur Chyawanprash as a preventive remedy in the pandemic of Covid-19, is being conducted by the National Institute of Ayurveda in Rajasthan’s Jaipur and is being sponsored by FMCG giant Dabur itself. 

The study involves 600 healthy participants, who were divided into two groups. While one group was asked to take 500 grams of Chyawanprash over 45 days, the second — a control group — was asked to drink a cup of milk for 90 days.

“Comparative assessment of incidence of Covid-19 and other infections in subjects taking DCP and those not taking it over a period of 3 months (90 days) will be assessed as primary outcome,” reads the study summary. 

According to Dr Arun Gupta, the head of medical affairs at Dabur, previous studies on Chyawanprash have proven its ability to prevent certain ailments.

“AYUSH authorities (of the Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy) have suggested that Chyawanprash should be given to healthy subjects so that they may have some benefits. So we want to see scientifically whether there really is some benefit or not,” he told ThePrint. 

However, since it is being conducted on a random selection of healthy participants, there seems no measurable way of gauging whether Chyawanprash is the preventive factor. When the study’s principal investigator, Dr Pawankumar Gupta, was asked this, he said prevention of Covid-19 is a “secondary outcome”. 

“We have been saying for thousands of years that this (Chyawanprash) increases immunity … It at least cures or prevents flu-like illnesses. So if they (the participants) don’t get the seasonal cold or cough, then we will consider this as good and it will be the evidence,” he said.

Breathing benefits for healing

Researchers at Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER) in Puducherry are testing the “effect of pranayama and meditation on psychological well-being of healthcare workers during COVID-19 pandemic”.

According to the study’s summary, it hopes to document how these traditional techniques can reduce psychological distress and enhance coping skills.

The 200 participants are divided into groups of two. While one group is asked to practise what is called ‘nadi shodhan pranayama‘ and the ‘panchkosha meditation‘ for a few minutes every day, the the control group doesn’t receive such intervention.

“At the end of two weeks period, the participants will be asked to again to respond to an online questionnaire which will assess their psychological parameters, sleep quality and coping abilities,” the study summary says.

Homoeopathic approach

In Agra, the Naiminath Homoeopathic Medical College is conducting as many as three studies to test the effects of the homoeopathic medicines — arsenic album, Bryonia alba, gelsemium, antimonium tartaricum, crotalus horridus. 

While in two of the studies involving Covid-19 patients, the treatment is being administered along with standard medicines, in the third study involving suspected Covid-19 patients, just a standalone homoeopathy therapy is being administered.

“These medicines have already been tested and proven on healthy human beings and it’s being administered (on the participants) by matching their symptoms … The results have been positive,” said Dr Ritu Gupta, the principal investigator of the study involving the suspected patients and health workers. 

Last month, the AYUSH ministry was criticised for recommending arsenic album-30 as a prophylactic or preventive medicine  against Covid-19. Homoeopathy, an alternative treatment which was developed by a German physician named Samuel Hahnemann in 1796, remains a controversial treatment. Health experts from across the world have often expressed scepticism towards homoeopathy and countries like Britain and France have stopped funding research in the field.

The grey zone

According to the guidelines of ICMR, India’s apex medical research body, all biomedical research involving human participants has to be approved by an ethics committee registered with the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation. These committees exist in a majority of the institutes around the country. 

Dr Anant Bhan, a global health, bioethics and health policy researcher affiliated with the Kasturba Medical College in Manipal, said there is always a “grey zone” when it comes to reviewing such therapies as there is often pushback from AYUSH practitioners who say that the process should be different. 

“But, if you are going to use that in human health, you need to put them up through certain standards. There have now been AYUSH therapies which are being tried out and are following a clinical trial design as per the standard protocol. But, there might be some differences because AYUSH therapies work in a different way and have their own assumption,” he said. 

Experts had until recently aired concern over the limited research in the country. According to data from CTRI, there was a spurt in the number of Covid-19 clinical trials only after 15 April. Meanwhile, in the US, 1,409 studies related to the pandemic are currently under trial.

On 6 May, the ICMR released guidelines to fast-track the ethical review process for research during the pandemic. “In the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic situation, research has to take the front stage in order to tackle the novel challenges that have come to the fore in an unprecedented manner,” the preface read.

“What we are going to see is a lot of research happening — quality would be mediocre and what we need is high-quality research. Any policy decision we take should be ideally grounded in quality evidence,” Bhan said.