The paper titled ‚Research Design of an Ayurvedic Study on Rheumatoid Arthritis‚ presented at the PSG College of Nursing, Coimbatore by Dr. Reshmi Sarin, MD (Ay) was honored as the BEST PAPER ON RESEARCH DESIGNS IN HEALTH SCIENCES. Dr. Reshmi Sarin is currently working as Asst. Chief Research Officer at AVTAR, the research division of Arya Vaidya Pharmacy.

This study was implemented with a grant from National Institutes of Health, USA and in collaboration with the University of Washington, Seattle. The study titled ‚Double-blind (DB), randomized, controlled, placebo-included, pilot study comparing Ayurvedic medicine (Ay), methotrexate (MTX), and their combination (COM) in RA‚ was successfully completed at the Ayurvedic Trust in August 2007. Dr. Daniel Furst, Clinical Lead Investigator and renowned Rheumatologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA was the brain behind the research design. Dr. Manorama Venkatraman was the Program Director. Other experts involved in the study include P.R. Krishna Kumar, Dr. K.G. Raveendran, Dr. P.G. Shekar, Dr. P. Ram Manohar, Dr. Anita Mahapatra and Mary McGann. Dr. Reshmi Sarin was the Study Coordinator in this project.

In this first ever, double-blind, pilot, randomized, controlled study comparing Ay, MTX and COM, the preliminary indication is that, in this setting, MTX and Ayurvedic treatments were approximately equivalent and the combination did not improve efficacy. AE's were numerically less in the Ay group. These data show that double-blind, placebo-included, randomized controlled studies are possible when testing true Ayurvedic versus allopathic medications. Larger trials are needed and are clearly possible.