Homoeopathic pathogenetic trial of Mentha piperita L.: A multi-centric, double-blind, randomised and placebo-controlled trial

Abstract

Introduction: Mentha piperita L, a lesser-known and partly proved drug in homoeopathy, is used extensively as a herbal medicine. Objective: The objective of this study is to elicit the pathogenetic response of Mentha piperita in comparison to placebo. Materials and Methods: A multicentre, double-blind, placebo-controlled and randomised clinical trial was carried out at three centres with 46 relatively healthy provers. After randomisation, 32 provers were given verum in 6C, 12C, 30C and 200C potencies and in the placebo group,14 provers were administered identical, un-medicated globules. All the changes were recorded by the provers and elaborated by proving masters. The data were finally processed at proving-cum-data processing cell. Results: Out of the 32 provers of the Verum group, 22 reported 61 symptoms, whereas 24 symptoms were reported by seven provers in the placebo group. The majority of the symptoms were produced in the sphere of the locomotor system, followed by the gastro-intestinal system beside other systems. Altogether, ten new Grade I symptoms were identified, while 11 symptoms were similar to those found in the previous literature. Conclusion: Mentha piperita revealed a significant pathogenetic response in this trial which verifies its previously observed symptoms. Among the newly developed symptoms, two symptoms showed opposite character when compared to the previous literature. Also, statistically significant difference was found in differential eosinophil count in the verum group pre-post intervention. These are the findings that need to be clinically verified to enhance the scope of their clinical use.