Functional dyspepsia treatment in Persian Medicine A mini-review and case series of 12 adults

Background: Gastrointestinal diseases are very common in different populations in the world. Dyspepsia can be defined as various groups of symptoms localized in the epigastric region. Functional dyspepsia is a relapsing and remitting disorder. There are different unpromising and unsatisfactory interventions for functional dyspepsia in conventional medicine with no complete cure. In addition, the patients should always use the drugs to control the annoying symptoms, imposing additional costs on them. Aim: To evaluate the patients treated by Persian Medicine as a complementary therapy. Method: The cases were 12 patients referred to Persian Medicine physicians in the Motahari clinic affiliated to SUMS (Shiraz University of Medical Sciences) in 2015-2016. All patients had received conventional treatments with undesirable response, so they were referred to Persian Medicine physicians. Those patients diagnosed with cold/wet dystemperament of GI - according to Persian Medicine principles - were included in our study. The average follow up for the patients was 45 days. Results: In this study, 83% (10 of 12) of the patients were female and 17% (2 of 12) male. The mean age of the patients in our study was 29.2 years. The patients' chief complaints were different: anorexia, heartburn, abdominal pain, and flatulence. Other complaints included overweight, increased appetite, headache, and sinusitis. Of 5 patients who complained of heartburn, 3 showed improvement in heartburn symptoms. Of 5 patients with flatulence, 3 showed improvement. 4 patients had increased appetite. Of the 6 patients with complaint of abdominal pain, 4 improved. Of the 2 patients who didn't show any improvement, one was due to doxycycline consumption and the other patient improved by the second follow up (Table 1). Conclusion: According to our study, Persian medicine treatments in functional dyspepsia can be considered as a safe complementary therapy in patients with poor response to conventional treatments. This preliminary study is an introduction to well-designed clinical trials in TPM department to evaluate the aforementioned claims in near future.