Clinical trial to determine the antidiarrhoeal potential of traditional medicine formulations TMFs-16, TMF-35a and TMF-43

Clinical trial to determine the therapeutic efficacy of three Traditional Medicine Formulations, claimed to have antidiarrhoeal action, were studied on 150 acute diarrhoeal patients admitted to the Infectious Diseases Hospital, Yangon. TMF-16 was found to possess a good antidiarrhoeal action with the antidiarrhoeal index (ADI) of 28.71 percent, which is approximately equal to that of the standard drug, loparamide which had the ADI of 27.94 percent. TMF-35a also possess a mild to moderate antidiarrhoeal action (ADI = 21.5 percent), but TMF-43 showed little or no antidiarrhoeal action (ADI = 9.64 percent). The cllinical significance of the study is that both TMF-16 and loparamide were found to reduce the stool output as well as the amount of fluid replacement required. TMF-16 is well tolerated, available locally and cheaply, and thus, may prove beneficial in the symptomatic relief of non-specific acute diarrhoea.

Clinical trial of antidiabetic traditional medicine formulation (TMF) No. 32

Clinical trial to determine the therapeutic efficacy of a traditional antidiabetic drug, TMF-32, was carried out on six Type II NIDDM patients who were admitted to the Traditional Medicine Hospital, Yangon. All patients, 3 males and 3 females, had a fasting blood glucose level of more than 150 mg percent (205.2 + 35.6) and a 2 hour post-prandial blood glucose level of more than 200 mg percent (323.0 + 62.09) and were clinically free from complications of diabetes. The study was a complete cross-over design, using tolbutamide as a control and was conducted under strict diabetic diet wupplying approximately 2500 kcals per day. Hypoglycaemic efficacy calculated from oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) curves indicated that TMF-32, at doses of 2G and 3G, significantly reduces the blood glucose levels in these patients (p < 0.01 in both doses). The maximum hypoglycaemic effect was seen at approximately 2 hours after dosing and the duration of action lasted only up to 6 hours. Construction of log. dose-response curves showed TMF-32 of having a hypoglycaemic potency of 73 percent of tolbutamide but frequent side effects and cost of drug give rise to contradicting questions on whether it may be useful as a standard traditional antidiabetic drug.