Phytochemical Basis of Oriental Medicine Herbal Remedies for erectile dysfunction

Abstract

Aim of the study: Erectile dysfunction (ED) is a common cause of seeking advice from health care professionals; this includes information about benefiting from traditional medicine remedies. Substantial advertising and big business of herbal aphrodisiacs demands many studies about efficacy and safety of these various approaches. Unfortunately, nearly all remedies of aphrodisiac plants in Oriental Medicine (OM) are still unstudied; in addition, usually one pathway regarding the bioactivity of a specific plant is discussed while plants contain numerous bioactive ingredients, every one engages in various biological systems. Materials and Methods: In this investigation, all plants recommended for ED by OM in selected comprehensive pharmacopoeia text -The storehouse of medicaments- were recognized, its last scientific name identified; and finally, related Phytochemical and biologic activities of each extracted from Dr. Duke's Phytochemical and Ethno botanical Databases. Results and Conclusions: From 210 plants suggested for treating ED in OM, only 76 plants were present in mentioned database; 64 (84%) of them have Phytochemical evidence to be effective on one or more pathways that affect the pathophysiology of ED; this paper provided first multi dimension prospective to herbal remedies for ED, and it may suggest better understanding of herbal combination formulations recommended by OM, and form new idea for future research.

Keywords

• persian medicine
• greco-arab medicine
• erectile dysfunction
• phytochemistry
• drug discovery