The Frequency of Using Herbal Medicines Among Patients With Hypertension in Kerman, Iran, 2012-2013

Abstract

Introduction. The use of medicinal plants has dramatically increased in recent years. Given the increasing rate of hypertension and medical plants usage by these patients and considering drug interactions due to concomitant use with drugs, the present study aims to evaluate the rate of medicinal plants usage in hypertensive patients. Methods. This is a cross-sectional study (descriptive-analytical) in which 650 hypertensive patients referring to the subspecialty clinic of Kerman were questioned about medicinal plants usage by a medicinal plants questionnaire. Among these patients, there were 612 who consented to participate. After the variables were described, the data were finally analyzed using Stata 12. Results. The average age of those using these drugs in the past year was 58.8 + 10 years. Of the total number of participants using medicinal plants, there were 58 males (23.5%) and 122 females (33.4%). There were 129 participants (72.5%) using medicinal plants through self-administration, 17 participants (9.5%) on experienced users' advice, 16 participants (9%) as administered by herbalists, and 11 participants (6%) as administered by doctors. However, the most important resources for using a drug that prevents hypertension were family and friends (74 participants; 41.5%) and doctors (13 participants; 7.3%). According to the results, there was no significant difference between the level of education and medicinal plants usage (P ¼ .95); however, there was a significant difference between gender and medicinal plants usage (P ¼ .009). Discussion. According to the results indicating the relatively high prevalence of medicinal plants usage and their arbitrary use by hypertensive patients without consulting a specialist, it seems necessary to plan for more effective and secure public education and train people to provide herbal drug services for various diseases with hypertension being the most common one.

Simultaneous Use of Herbal Medicines and Antihypertensive Drugs Among Hypertensive Patients in the Community: A Review

“… 5 , 19 , 24 Tajadini showed that herbal medicines were used as adjunctive therapy for lowering blood pressure. 14 Meanwhile, approximately 8–70.4% of patients claimed that herbal medicines were highly effective and did not cause problems when used concurrently with antihypertensive drugs. 20–22 This result was similar to that of the study of Delgoda et al that showed that the reason for the concurrent use of herbal medicines and prescribed drugs was attributed to hereditary beliefs.…”

Self-management using crude herbs and the health-related quality of life among adult patients with hypertension living in a suburban setting of Malaysia

“…In this study, the prevalence of crude herbs use is 30.6%-double the prevalence of herbal medicine usage in a previous study conducted in an urban primary health clinic in Malaysia [11]. Other previous studies conducted in the Asian countries reported varying prevalence: Palestine (62.1%) [14], China (18.5%) [28], and Iran (29.4%) [29]. The different prevalence noted could be attributed to these factors: availability and diversity of herbs species across countries with different climate; varied cultural practices of people with different ethnicities; and different definitions of herbs used in the previous studies.…”

“…From this study, some of the more prominently used crude herbs by patients are Centella asiatica, Momordica charantia, Carica papaya, Cucumis sativus, Parkia speciosa, Moringa oleifera and Cosmos caudatus. In two previous surveys performed locally, Momordica charantia, Centella asiatica and Carica papaya are similar to some of the main herbs used by patients with hypertension [11,29]. This common finding could be due to the availability of and accessibility to these herbs in the tropical climate of Malaysia.…”

Treatment of Recurrent Ovarian Cysts and Primary Infertility by Iranian Traditional Medicine: A Case Report

“…Scientific methods of infertility treatment have advanced in recent years but they are mostly expensive, invasive, and time-consuming. 2 Complementary medicine is becoming more and more popular in the world, especially Western countries 3 , 4 ; for example, 75% of the women in the reproductive age used one of the methods of complementary medicine in 2006. 5 …”