Persian Medicine Herbal Therapies for Osteoarthritis: a Review of Clinical Trials

Osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee is one of the important medical complications in elderly peoples. Various pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapies are described for treatment of knee OA, but considerable side effects especially in old populations are the limiting factors. Traditional, complementary and integrative medicines have a long history in treatment of chronic diseases such as OA. Many different oral and topical drugs have been introduced for curing of OA in Persian medicine (PM) as one of the most important and historical systems of medicine. The aim of this survey was to review the clinical trials related to pharmacological treatment of knee OA with medicinal methods of PM. The main databases including PubMed, Scopus and ISI Web of Knowledge were searched and consequently eight clinical trials were achieved. Some of common dosage forms such as gel and oil and some of traditional ones like "Marham" and "Dohn" were used for treatment of OA in these studies. The investigated plants were suppressors for different pathways of inflammatory responses. Antioxidant capacity and analgesic effects were other recognized effects for some of these herbs. In clinical aspect, seven of eight papers that were presented in this study, showed a significant effect in the treatment of OA; however, more researches are required to judge these traditional therapies.