Brahmi

Brahmi (Bacopa monniera) is a marshy herb originally used in Indian (Ayurvedic) medicine.  Its active ingredients are triterpene compounds named bacosides.

Brahmi is used for the treatment of these conditons:

Anxiety:

In a recent human study, 35 anxiety patients were treated with brahmi for four weeks.  At the end of the study they were clinically assessed for their anxiety levels and were found to have an average 20% reduction in the severity of their anxiety.

Asthma:

Various fractions contained in brahmi possess broncho-vasodilatory activity, which is useful for preventing asthma attacks in asthmatics.

Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD):

A clinical trial involving 36 attention deficit disorder children aged 8-10-years was conducted.  19 children were given 100 mg of brahmi per day and the remaining 17 received a placebo.  After 12 weeks of treatment, the children were tested on a battery of tests which revealed a significant improvement in the areas of sentence repetition, logical memory, and pair-associative learning (matching things that go together; e.g., "test" and "grade") in 100% of the children who received brahmi.  The evaluation did not occur until four weeks after withdrawal from brahmi therapy, indicating that it had a long-lasting effect.

Intelligence:

The active constituents of brahmi (named bacosides) have been found to improve various aspects of memory.

In one study, rats were individually trained in a simple maze until they reached a set level of performance.  They were then divided into three groups, each of which received either nothing, diazepam or brahmi.  At the end of ten days, they were evaluated by repeating the T-maze trial.  Rats given brahmi experienced significant learning and memory enhancement, compared with the control and diazepam groups.

In another study, an extract of brahmi was given to rats to measure its effect on various memory parameters.  Rats learned faster, retained more of what they had learned, and remembered it longer after receiving brahmi.  Bacosides in brahmi also enhanced taste memory and reduced the memory impairment caused by immobilisation and stress.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome:

Brahmi alleviates the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome.  In one well-designed study, administration of brahmi resulted in a 65% improvement in symptoms compared to a 33% improvement in symptoms in irritable bowel syndrome patients given a placebo compound.

Dosage:

180 - 300 mg per day (using brahmi capsules/tablets standardized to contain 20% of the active ingredients, bacosides).

References

Anxiety

· Singh, R. H., et al.  Studies on the anti-anxiety effect of the medyha rasayana drug, Brahmi (Bacopa monniera Wettst). Part 1.  J Res Ayur Siddha.  1:133-148, 1980.

Asthma

· Channa, S., et al.  Broncho-vasodilatory activity of fractions and pure constituents isolated from Bacopa monniera.  Journal of Ethnopharmacology.  86(1):27-35, 2003.

Attention Deficit Disorder

· Mishra, M.  Memory Plus works, claim clinical studies.  The Times of India. March 29, 1998.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome

· Yadav, S. K., et al.  Irritable bowel syndrome:  therapeutic evaluation of indigenous drugs.  Indian Journal of Medical Research.  90:496-503, 1989.

Memory

· Roodenrys, S., et al.  Chronic effects of brahmi (Bacopa monnieri) on human memory.  Neuropsychopharmacology.  27(2):279-281, 2002.

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