Herbal Medicines for the Treatment of Functional and Inflammatory Bowel Disorders

Abstract

In many parts of the world, there continues to be a long-standing tradition of prescribing herbal products for a range of gastrointestinal conditions. Scientific evidence supporting the use of all herbal preparations is imperfect, however, and available studies are plagued by methodological limitations. For functional gastrointestinal disorders, there is limited evidence supporting the use of some well-characterized preparations. A number of herbals have immunomodulatory activity, and in inflammatory bowel disease there are limited positive placebo-controlled trials; other studies used active controls with suboptimal doses of the comparators. Like all drugs, herbals can lead to serious adverse events (eg, hepatic failure). Quality control is a serious issue to consider when prescribing herbal medicines. Many herbal preparations are marketed without evidence for stringent adherence to good manufacturing practice guidelines. Unpredictable environmental conditions may affect the composition and the concentration of the active ingredients of plant extracts. Further, commercial herbal products usually combine a variable plethora of chemical families with possible medicinal utility. While some of these ingredients might be of benefit, the concentration and dose of these constituents needs to be closely monitored. Physicians and regulators need to remain very cautious about the use of herbal remedies. Appropriate scientific evidence for the claimed clinical benefits should become mandatory worldwide, and the standards for production and safety monitoring should comply with established standards for chemically defined products. If these principles were adopted, the full value of herbal remedies may come to light, particularly as the individually bioactive compounds present in these preparations become recognized.

Therapeutic Potential ofMyrtus communisSubsp.communisExtract Against Acetic ACID-Induced Colonic Inflammation in Rats

“…; Sanchez et al . ; Holtmann and Talley ). The genus Myrtus L. (Myrtaceae) is represented by one taxon in Turkey, Myrtus communis L. subsp.…”

“…Recently, various plant extracts have been claimed to be useful for therapy of gastrointestinal disorders and have been widely investigated (Al Batran et al 2013;Das et al 2013;Sanchez et al 2013;Holtmann and Talley 2015). The genus Myrtus L. (Myrtaceae) is represented by one taxon in Turkey, Myrtus communis L. subsp.…”

Therapeutic strategies for functional dyspepsia and irritable bowel syndrome based on pathophysiology

“…STW 5 (iberogast) has been reported to be superior to placebo, but the quality of the initial trials is low [104]. A randomized trial of the Japanese herbal product rikkunshito showed overall it was not beneficial over placebo [105].…”

The efficacy of oral Zhizhu Kuanzhong, a traditional Chinese medicine, in patients with postprandial distress syndrome

“…Over the past 30 years, there were a growing number of publications in the field of “complementary alternative medicine” or “herbal medicine.” The dissatisfaction with conventional therapies promotes the use of herbal medicine . A systematic literature review reported that the prevalence of complementary and alternative medicine usage in European population ranged from 0.3% to 86% .…”

“…A systematic literature review reported that the prevalence of complementary and alternative medicine usage in European population ranged from 0.3% to 86% . Plenty of clinical trials focus on the effects of herbal medicines in FD and irritable bowel syndrome patients . For example, the total effective rate of symptom improvement of Xiaoyao pill ranged from 82.6% to 93.7% .…”