Arnica Montana: Natural Magic
(Page 3 of 7)
May/June 2004
By Nancy Allison
The Aspirin of Homeopathy
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In the Department of Plastic Surgery of Queen Victoria Hospital in West Sussex, England, 37 patients undergoing surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome participated in a double-blind study. The researchers administered homeopathic arnica tablets and herbal arnica ointment to patients, and concluded that there was a significant reduction in pain in the arnica-treated group.
Anecdotal evidence for arnica’s effectiveness abounds. A friend of mine who underwent hip surgery in England took homeopathic arnica for six weeks prior to her operation on the advice of her doctor. She experienced no postoperative bruising and very little inflammation. Best of all, the pain was not nearly as acute as she had expected after such major surgery.
Homeopathic use of arnica as a sports medicine has been praised by U.S. experts, as well. Steven Subotnick, D.P.M., N.D., D.C., author of Sports and Exercise Injuries: Conventional, Homeopathic and Alternative Treatments (North Atlantic, 1991), finds that among his patients with acute injuries and afflictions from overuse, homeopathic arnica decreases pain and speeds healing. Subotnick is so impressed with its results that he has referred to arnica as “the aspirin of homeopathy.”
Dr. Irmgard Merfort of Freiburg University in Germany knows that arnica works — but has discovered that it does so in a very different way from aspirin. Merfort’s studies confirm that it is the sesquiterpene lactones (ester derivatives of helenalin and dihydrohelenalin) that are considered to be the active compounds in arnica. These natural products work together to stop inflammation of the blood vessels. But the difference is that they work on a molecular level — by inhibiting the messages that tell the gene to encode for inflammation.
“They use a unique mechanism of NF-kappaB [a central mediator in the immune system] inactivation, which is quite different from that of other anti-inflammatory agents,” Merfort says. “Based on our results, sesquiterpene lactones could serve as lead compounds for the development of novel, potent anti-inflammatory drugs for the treatment of inflammatory disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis or inflammatory bowel diseases. These drugs also could be important in the treatment or prevention of adult respiratory distress syndrome or systemic immune response syndrome.”
A Long History of Use
Frau Gehring, who is 70, doesn’t concern herself with studies. Sure of its potency already, she has been making arnica tincture each summer for the past 50 years, as her mother and grandmother did before her.
Although she does not pick the arnica these days because it’s a protected plant in Germany (she now buys dried flower heads at the local pharmacy), she still likes to “cure” the Zauberpflanzen in the summer garden, as she always has done.
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