Herbal Medicines in the Treatment of Dyspepsia: An Overview

This review focuses on the efficacy of herbal medicines for managing dyspepsia in humans and animals. Searches were conducted on the PubMed, Science Direct, and Medline databases, for publications in the last 3 years. In each database, the search terms used consisted of the 2 key terms describing the disorder and subtypes plus each of the terms relating to the therapy. The key terms used were "natural product" and "medicinal plant" in a cross-over with "dyspepsia" and "functional dyspepsia" (i.e., gastroprotection, Helicobacter pylori infection, prokinetic). We included all human and animal studies on the effects of herbal medicines reporting the key outcome of dyspepsia symptoms. Preclinical studies using critically validated models showed that most medicinal plants with gastroprotective action had antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-apoptotic, and antisecretory effects. Moreover, several species displayed anti Helicobacter pylori and prokinetic efficacy. The data availability of controlled clinical studies is currently minimal. The use of different methodologies and the minimal number of patients raise doubts about the effects of these preparations. Only adequate clinical trials with scientifically validated methods can determine whether different herbal medicines can be used as viable alternatives to the conventional pharmacological treatments used to control dyspepsia symptoms.