One Doctor’s Lonely Quest To Heal Brain Injury
I have previously written on new findings that state the common female hormone, Progesterone, has the ability to heal a patient’s brain more rapidly than with current treatment alone. But I recently found an article online about a doctor from Atlanta who has been studying this theory for the past 40 years, and his thoughts and insights intrigued me.
In the early 1960s, Dr. Donald G. Stein would study how a rat’s body would respond to brain tests and quickly noticed a trend of faster healing time in his female patients than in the males. Dr. Stein believed that Progesterone might actually protect and heal injured brains. His work helped overturn medical orthodoxy that states that brain tissue, once injured, stays that way.
Dr. Stein is now planning, with colleagues, to test this hypothesis on human patients over the next several years. Before progesterone can be approved as a treatment, Dr. Stein’s findings must be proved in a larger study of humans. Dr. Stein and his Emory team have applied for funds to do a 1,000-patient study, which will give the definitive word.
You can read more on Dr. Stein’s story and research study here.