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The clinical application of Chinese herbal medication to depression: A narrative review

Depression severely impairs psychosocial functioning and quality of life, which places a huge burden on patients and their families. However, the physiological mechanism of depression remains unknown. Treatment with existing antidepressant medications is effective in around 50% of patients according...

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Autores principales: Kang, Dongyu, Dong, Huixi, Shen, Yidong, Ou, Jianjun, Zhao, Jingping
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10034025/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36969689
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1120683
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author Kang, Dongyu
Dong, Huixi
Shen, Yidong
Ou, Jianjun
Zhao, Jingping
author_facet Kang, Dongyu
Dong, Huixi
Shen, Yidong
Ou, Jianjun
Zhao, Jingping
author_sort Kang, Dongyu
collection PubMed
description Depression severely impairs psychosocial functioning and quality of life, which places a huge burden on patients and their families. However, the physiological mechanism of depression remains unknown. Treatment with existing antidepressant medications is effective in around 50% of patients according to various studies, but is associated with severe side effects including nausea and headaches. Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) has been approved and widely used for depression as an alternative medicine in Chinese culture for decades. It has certain advantages and potential in the prevention and treatment of depression. In this review, we summarize the currently available evidence for the efficacy of CHM for the treatment of depression and physiological diseases comorbid with depression. We further discuss the possible mechanisms of action of CHM and the relationships to our current understanding of depression. The majority of current evidence has suggested that the combined treatment with CHM and mainstream antidepressants improves the response rate and reduces the side effects, while CHM alone could be more effective than placebo. However, the results should be carefully interpreted due to the shortcomings of existing clinical trials and a high risk of bias in meta-analyses. Our review provides a summary of the current applications and understanding of widely used CHMs for depression.
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spelling pubmed-100340252023-03-24 The clinical application of Chinese herbal medication to depression: A narrative review Kang, Dongyu Dong, Huixi Shen, Yidong Ou, Jianjun Zhao, Jingping Front Public Health Public Health Depression severely impairs psychosocial functioning and quality of life, which places a huge burden on patients and their families. However, the physiological mechanism of depression remains unknown. Treatment with existing antidepressant medications is effective in around 50% of patients according to various studies, but is associated with severe side effects including nausea and headaches. Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) has been approved and widely used for depression as an alternative medicine in Chinese culture for decades. It has certain advantages and potential in the prevention and treatment of depression. In this review, we summarize the currently available evidence for the efficacy of CHM for the treatment of depression and physiological diseases comorbid with depression. We further discuss the possible mechanisms of action of CHM and the relationships to our current understanding of depression. The majority of current evidence has suggested that the combined treatment with CHM and mainstream antidepressants improves the response rate and reduces the side effects, while CHM alone could be more effective than placebo. However, the results should be carefully interpreted due to the shortcomings of existing clinical trials and a high risk of bias in meta-analyses. Our review provides a summary of the current applications and understanding of widely used CHMs for depression. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-03-09 /pmc/articles/PMC10034025/ /pubmed/36969689 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1120683 Text en Copyright © 2023 Kang, Dong, Shen, Ou and Zhao. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Kang, Dongyu
Dong, Huixi
Shen, Yidong
Ou, Jianjun
Zhao, Jingping
The clinical application of Chinese herbal medication to depression: A narrative review
title The clinical application of Chinese herbal medication to depression: A narrative review
title_full The clinical application of Chinese herbal medication to depression: A narrative review
title_fullStr The clinical application of Chinese herbal medication to depression: A narrative review
title_full_unstemmed The clinical application of Chinese herbal medication to depression: A narrative review
title_short The clinical application of Chinese herbal medication to depression: A narrative review
title_sort clinical application of chinese herbal medication to depression: a narrative review
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10034025/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36969689
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1120683
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