Review Article
Herbal Medicine for Oligomenorrhea and Amenorrhea:
A Systematic Review of Ancient and Conventional Medicine
Arezoo Moini Jazani ,
1
Kobra Hamdi ,
2
Mojgan Tansaz,
3
Hossein Nazemiyeh,
4
Homayoun Sadeghi Bazargani ,
5
Seyed Mohammad Bagher Fazljou,
1
and Ramin Nasimi Doost Azgomi
1
1
Department of Iranian Traditional Medicine, School of Traditional Medicine, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
2
Women’s Reproductive Health Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
3
Department of Traditional Medicine, School of Traditional Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
4
Research Center for Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
5
Road Trafc Injury Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
Correspondence should be addressed to Kobra Hamdi; hamdi kobra@yahoo.com
Received 23 September 2017; Accepted 8 February 2018; Published 18 March 2018
Academic Editor: Gail B. Mahady
Copyright © 2018 Arezoo Moini Jazani et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly
cited.
Introduction. Menstrual bleeding cessation is one of the most frequent gynecologic disorders among women in reproductive
age. Te treatment is based on hormone therapy. Due to the increasing request for alternative medicine remedies in the feld
of women’s diseases, in present study, it was tried to overview medicinal plants used to treat oligomenorrhea and amenorrhea
according to the pharmaceutical textbooks of traditional Persian medicine (TPM) and review the evidence in the conventional
medicine. Methods. Tis systematic review was designed and performed in 2017 in order to gather information regarding herbal
medications of oligomenorrhea and amenorrhea in TPM and conventional medicine. Tis study had several steps as searching
Iranian traditional medicine literature and extracting the emmenagogue plants, classifying the plants, searching the electronic
databases, and fnding evidences. To search traditional Persian medicine references, Noor digital library was used, which includes
several ancient traditional medical references. Te classifcation of plants was done based on the repetition and potency of the
plants in the ancient literatures. Te required data was gathered using databases such as PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, Cochrane
Library, Science Direct, and web of knowledge. Results. In present study of all 198 emmenagogue medicinal plants found in TPM, 87
cases were specifed to be more efective in treating oligomenorrhea and amenorrhea. In second part of present study, where a search
of conventional medicine was performed, 12 studies were found, which had 8 plants investigated: Vitex agnus-castus, Trigonella
foenum-graecum, Foeniculum vulgare, Cinnamomum verum, Paeonia lactifora, Sesamum indicum, Mentha longifolia, and Urtica
dioica. Conclusion. Traditional Persian medicine has proposed many diferent medicinal plants for treatment of oligomenorrhea
and amenorrhea. Although just few plants have been proven to be efective for treatment of menstrual irregularities, the results and
the classifcation in present study can be used as an outline for future studies and treatment.
1. Introduction
Oligomenorrhea and amenorrhea are one of the most com-
mon gynecologic complaints among women in reproductive
age. Prevalence of oligomenorrhea and secondary amenor-
rhea has been reported to be 10–15 percent and 3-4 percent,
respectively [1, 2]. Regardless of the diagnosis, oligomen-
orrhea and amenorrhea are changes in regular menstrual
cycles which include long menstrual cycles and absence of
menstruation, respectively [3]. Hormonal therapy based on
estrogen and progesterone compounds is the mainstay of the
treatment for these conditions [4].
Nowadays there has been an increasing trend in usage
of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) [5].
Traditional Persian medicine (TPM), as a holistic system of
medicine and based on temperament, is one of the wealthiest
Hindawi
BioMed Research International
Volume 2018, Article ID 3052768, 22 pages
https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/3052768