Article: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW ON EFFICACY AND SAFETY OF UNANI MEDICINES USED IN THE TREATMENT OF OBESITY

Article Category: Original Research articles

DOI: 10.7897/2277-4343.096178

Pages: 91-96

Author: Saima Saleem, Aysha Ansari, Malik Itrat *

Abstract: The prevalence of obesity is alarminglyincreasingacross the world. It is an emerging perplexing issue that not only itself a health problem but also associated with many other diseases ranging from cardiovascular disorders to some type of cancers. Important concern for health care providers is the limited availability of an effective medical treatment for obesity.Some clinical trials conducted recently, reported the efficacy of Unani medicine in obesity. Therefore, a systematic review was conducted to assess the weight reducing effect of Unani therapeutics in overweight and obese adults. A comprehensive search of electronic databases, viz., PubMed, Google Scholar, Cochrane library, MedIND wascarried out using keywords like ‘Unani Medicine’, ‘Obesity’, ‘Clinical trial’, ‘Weight loss’ ‘Siman-i-mufrit’ or combination of these. In addition, journals and dissertations in the library of the National Institute of Unani Medicine, Bangalore, India was manually searched. Among the retrieved studies, only six clinical trials met the criteria and were included in the review. Total 267participants were enrolled in these studies and treatment duration ranged from 2 to 3 months. Included studies reported significant anti-obesity effects (decline in certain parameters) with the administration of test formulations without any adverse effect. Although, overall evidence suggested the efficacy of Unani therapeutics in the treatment of obesity without any adverse effects; however, the effect size found in some studies was very small in comparison to control. Hence, studies with an effect size of clinical relevance are further required to determine the use of these drugsin routine clinical practice.

Keyword: Efficacy; Safety; Obesity; Unani Medicine