[Meager support for herbal therapy of rheumatoid arthritis]

The Cochrane collaboration has recently published a systematic review of placebo controlled randomized trials of herbal therapies for rheumatoid arthritis. An extensive search including all languages screened 2500 hits, identified 47 trials and accepted 11 as meeting set quality criteria. Modest efficacy of gamma linolenic acid containing products was supported by 7 trials, 4 trials dealt with 4 different products, and no conclusions could be derived from these. Although it was stated in the review that safety was probably good, this is not apparent from the presented material.