Optimization of Progesterone is presently under the testing stage by researchers for measuring the effectiveness of this hormone to treat patients suffering from traumatic brain injuries.

The finding was revealed by two abstracts highlighting Emory research on the hormone, which was presented at the 2009 Society for Neuroscience (SFN) meeting in Chicago. The study authors noted that low quantities of Vitamin D can be termed useful to enhance ability of the hormone for protecting neurons from is a principal cause of brain injury and death of cells.

From Sciencedaily.com:

One of the SFN abstracts reports on progesterone analogues that are more water-soluble. This work comes from Stein and his colleagues in collaboration with the laboratory of Dennis Liotta, PhD, Emory professor of chemistry.

Currently, the lack of water solubility limits delivery of progesterone, in that the hormone must be prepared hours ahead and cannot be kept at room temperature. Small chemical modifications may allow similar compounds with the same effects as progesterone to be given to patients closer to the time of injury.

According to the results, two compounds similar to progesterone showed an equivalent ability to reduce brain swelling in an animal model of traumatic brain injury.

The second abstract describes evidence that adding vitamin D to progesterone enhances the hormone’s effectiveness when applied to neurons under stress in the laboratory. Like progesterone, vitamin D is a steroid hormone that is inexpensive, has good safety properties and acts on many different biochemical pathways.

The trial was developed by Donald Stein, PhD, Asa G. Candler Professor of Emergency Medicine at Emory School of Medicine.