EFFECT OF Mucuna pruriens ON SPERM PARAMETERS WITH IDIOPATHIC INFERTILITY: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Abstract

In Ayurveda Mucuna pruriens (M. pruriens) is considered as a medicine for male subfertility. There are in vitro, in vivo and literature reviews to demonstrate beneficial medicinal effects of M. pruriens in worldwide. This study aims to systematically review the scientific literature and provide a comprehensive summary on the effect of M. pruriens on sperm parameters with idiopathic infertility. A comprehensive systematic review was conducted in the following databases: PubMed, Google scholar and Cochrane library for research articles published in between 2000 and 2020. The keywords that were used in combination to search for articles included, "Mucuna pruriens","idio- pathic infertility" and "sperm parameters". The literature search done by using keywords and identified following number of articles in the respective databases; PubMed (n=13), Google scholar (n= 116), and Cochrane library (n=4). After removing duplications, the total number of articles included in the present review is 124. 114 studies were omitted due to exclusion criteria and use of combine M. pruriens with other medicinal herbs, due to the im- possibility of determining the net effect of M. pruriens. Included articles were screened in the final stage by reading the full article. There were 10 different studies evaluating the in vitro effect of M. pruriens on sperm parameters with idiopathic infertility. The results of this study showed that consumption of M. pruriens significantly improves sperm count and motility. According to studies (n=2) M. pruriens can improve morphological defects of sperms to some extents and none of those studies recorded any adverse effects. Keywords: Mucuna pruriens, Sperm parameters, Idiopathic infertility, Motility, Morphology