Effects of herbal medicine in gastroesophageal reflux disease symptoms:a systematic review and meta-analysis

摘要

Background: Pyrosis and regurgitation are the cardinal symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux disease. Severalherbs have been used for treating gastrointestinal disorders worldwide. This systematic review was conducted toinvestigate the effects of medicinal herbs on gastroesophageal reflux disease and adverse events. Methods:MEDLINE (via PubMed;The United States National Library of Medicine, USA), Scopus, ScienceDirect,Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Web of Science, Magiran, and Scientific Information Databasewere systematically searched for human studies, without a time frame, using medical subject heading terms such as“gastroesophageal reflux disease”, “reflux”, “esophagitis” and “herbs”. Manual searches completed the electronicsearches. Results: Thirteen randomized controlled trials were identified, including 1,164 participants from 1,509publications. In comparing herbal medicine to placebo, there were no significant differences in terms of heartburn(P = 0.23 and 0.48), epigastric or abdominal pain (P = 0.35), reflux syndrome (P = 0.12), and effective rate (P =0.60), but there was a significant difference in terms of acid regurgitation (P = 0.01). In comparing herbal medicineto drugs, there was a significant difference in terms of effective rate (P = 0.001), and there was one trial thatreported a significant difference in terms of epigastric pain (P = 0.00001). Also, in comparing herbal medicine todrugs, there were no significant differences in terms of acid regurgitation (P = 0.39). Conclusion: Thismeta-analysis showed that herbal medicines are effective in treating gastroesophageal reflux disease. Furtherstandardized researches with a large-scale, multicenter, and rigorous design are needed.