More Evidence for Using Progesterone Following a Brain Injury
Back in January 2001 and again in June 2002 I wrote in the Hopkins Health Watch (then a column in the John R. Lee, M.D. Medical Letter) on research at Emory University with progesterone and brain injury, first in rodents and then in humans. Lead researcher Dr. Donald Stein hypothesized that progesterone reduces the inflammation that frequently leads to dangerous brain swelling following head injury, and slows or blocks the formation of free radicals, which in a brain injury can cause substantial brain cell death. Brain injury kills about 50,000 Americans every year, and disables 80,000 more.
The Emory human clinical study, which began in 2002 on patients entering emergency rooms with brain injuries, was recently published in the journal Annals of Emergency Medicine in October 2006. Now led by Dr. David W. Wright, the study involved 100 adults with brain injury who reached the emergency room within 11 hours of injury. Eighty percent of the patients were given progesterone, and 20 percent were given a placebo. The death rate in the 30 days after injury was 13 percent in the progesterone group compared to 30 percent in the placebo group-those are the kind of odds I'd like to have in my favor if I had a brain injury.