Phytotherapies in inflammatory bowel disease

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has been considered as a group of heterogeneous intestinal diseases that affects multiple organs outside of the gastrointestinal tract and is due to an uncontrolled inflammatory response mediated by the immune system. The IBD etiology has not been clearly defined, and it is considered as a multifactorial disease. Due to side effects of some conventional therapies, the consumption of complementary and alternative medicines, and in particular, the herbal therapy, more than before is increasing. Herbal therapy results for management of IBD by various mechanisms including leukotriene B4 inhibition, antioxidant activity, immune system regulation of nuclear factor-kappa B, as well as antiplatelet activity are favorable, and no unfortunate events have been yet reported. In this article, we aimed to review and report the herbal therapies established for management of human IBD or evaluated by animal IBD models. Their possible mechanisms of actions are also discussed.