Effective Chinese herb helps ease arthritis pain: Study

April 17, 2014  12:55

Old Chinese herb known as “thunder god vine” helped to ease the pain and swelling of rheumatoid arthritis as effectively as the commonly prescribed methotrexate, reported NewsMax Health.

In a trial of 207 patients in China, those who took extracts of the herb showed slightly more improvement than those on methotrexate alone; combining the two boosted efficacy significantly over methotrexate alone. The study appears in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases published by BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal.

Thunder god vine could become a new approach to treating rheumatoid arthritis because not all patients respond to methotrexate and modern biologic treatments, which are very expensive, the researchers wrote in the report.

“While the herb has been used to treat rheumatoid arthritis in China for many centuries, there wasn’t clinical evidence of its efficacy compared with current standard medical treatments,” said lead author Xuan Zhang, a doctor at the Peking Union Medical College Hospital’s Department of Rheumatology.

Thunder god vine extract, named Tripterygium wilfordii Hook F has also been investigated for its potential to treat autoimmune diseases and some cancers. A drug made from the plant wiped out pancreatic tumors in mice, researchers at the University of Minnesota’s Masonic Cancer Center said in a study published in October 2012.

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