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Session 2: Clinical studies and clinical application of traditional & indigenous medicine

Recent Advances in the Management of Chronic Inflammatory

Diseases with Special Reference to Leech Therapy

O. P. Singh*, Brijesh P. Singh**

*Department of Kayachikitsa, Institute of Medical Science, **Faculty of Commerce, & DST-Centre for
Interdisciplinary Mathematical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India

Background and rationale: Ayurveda, one of the most ancient and holistic Indian sys-
tems of medicine, is serving the mankind since the vedic era. Shamana and Shodhana are the
two major pillars of the Ayurvedic therapy. Raktamokshan or bloodletting is one of the ancient
and important para-surgical procedures which is used to drain impure blood or vaikrit rakta
from the diseased body. Charaka and Sushruta treated successfully many incurable wounds
(Asadhya Vrana) and other medical conditions such as Kustha, Switra, Vatarakta, Sandhigatavata,
etc. Non-poisonous Leech is one of the most beneficial, safe delicate and cheap treatment
modality. Leech therapy has gained greater attention globally, because of its medicinal values.
The saliva of leech contains more than hundred biologically active substances which exerts
potent effect to reverse disease condition. The main chemical constituents are: hirudin, calin,
destabilase, hirustasin, cathepsin G, bdellins, hyaluronidase, tryptase inhibitor, eglins etc.
These constituent showed very good anti-inflammatory, analgesic, vasodilators, anesthetics
effects. It also increases microcirculation by decreasing the blood viscosity. Apart from this, it
decreases the oxidative stress and increases the antioxidant level in the patients.
Objectives: Nowadays leech therapy is being used in the treatment of rheumatoid
arthritis, osteoarthritis, gout, various skin diseases like psoriasis, eczema, acne, filariasis,
non-healing ulcers, varicose veins, ischemic conditions like IHD and CVA infarct. In this study
an attempt has been made to understand the effect of leech therapy.
Methods: Keeping above facts in the mind, various clinical researches are going on
leech therapy in Department of Kayachikitsa, IMS, BHU with encouraging results. Bivariate
analysis and paired t-test has been used to know the changes occurred in different parameters,
before and after treatment.
Results: According to the study it is reveal that the treatment by leech decreases serum
TNF-alfa significantly. Before treatment it was 75.5±10.03 pg/ml and after treatment it was
54.64±13.52 pg/ml. Similar result is found in case of serum IL-6, it reduces drastically from
93.21±26.98 to 28.14±9.78 pg/ml. In osteoarthritis the leech therapy reduces the oxidant level
(MDA) from 1.54±0.658 to 1.31±0.625 and it is significant at 5 percent level of significance.
Also the protein carbonyl level decreases significantly, before treatment it was 2.80±1.038
nmol/mg and after treatment it was 1.79±1.251 nmol/mg.
Conclusion: Since leech therapy is low cost therapy and has no side effect, it gains
popularity in the Indian society as well as cross border peoples. Leach sucks bad quality of
blood and inserts good bio-chemical agents in the body through its saliva.
Key words: Ayurveda, Leech therapy, Rakta, Leech saliva.