Abstract

Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of herbal medicine and naturopathy intervention on serum creatinine level among chronic kidney disease patients.

Methodology: The study was carried out in universal good life ashram, Thirunelveli, Tamilnadu, India. A convenient sample of 20 patients who were between the ages of 35-65 of both sexes with chronic renal failure who attended our inpatient department of renal care unit was selected for the study. Depending upon the number of days the patients underwent the treatment we divided them in to three groups (5 days group, 7 days group, 10 days group). We had given an herbal medicine and naturopathy treatments like cool water enema, cold hip bath and kidney pack for the chronic kidney disease patients. Serum creatinine level was evaluated before and after the corresponding days of treatment. Data were collected for statistical analysis.

Results: All the participants have shown significant reduction in serum creatinine level. There was a reduction of 28.6% of serum creatinine value after the 5 days of alternative medicine interventions (pre-creatinine value 3.640, SD±1.6334; post-creatinine value 2.600, SD±1.6000), whereas there was a reduction of 27% of serum creatinine value after the 7 days of interventions (pre-creatinine value 3.714, SD±2.1435; post-creatinine value 2.714, SD±1.7014) and 31.81% reduction of creatinine after 10 days of treatment (pre-creatinine value 5.500, SD±1.3137; post-creatinine value 3.750, SD±.9681).

Conclusion: This study shows the significance of short term reduction in serum creatinine level among chronic kidney disease patients by herbal medicine and naturopathy interventions. This study needs further clinical trials with large samples to show the effect of herbal and naturopathy medicine on serum creatinine level for long term management.

Keywords: Chronic kidney diseases; Alternative medicine; Naturopathy; Herbal medicine; Serum creatinine