Comparing Analgesic Effects of a Topical Herbal Mixed Medicine with Salicylate in Patients with Knee Osteoarthritis

Abstract

Knee osteoarthritis is the most common cause of disability among people and it is a common disease of joints that can lead to cartilage damage. In this study the analgesic effects of a herbal ointment containing cinnamon, ginger, mastic (Saghez) and sesame oil is compared with Salicylate ointment in patients suffering from knee osteoarthritis. It was a double-blind randomized controlled trail study. Patients with diagnosed arthritis were involved in the study and they were divided in two groups via block randomization method. For six weeks, twice a day, intervention group applied herbal ointment and control group used Salicylate ointment. The severity of pain, morning stiffness and limited motion were measured using Visual Analog Pain Scale. In order to analyze the trends of these three indexes, repeated measurement test was used. Ninety two participates with the mean age of 52.2 (+/- 12.4) years and with the mean disease period of 30.45 (+/- 30.3) months were involved in the study. There was no significant difference between two groups regarding the distribution of sex, weight, height, BMI and the duration of illness. No statistical difference was observed between two groups regarding pain relief, morning stiffness and limited motion; nevertheless in repeated measurements during second, forth and sixth weeks in both groups the decreasing trend of these three indexes had been statistically significant (p < 0.0001). It seems that using this herbal combination is clinically effective for patients suffering from knee osteoarthritis in order to decrease their pain, morning stiffness and limited motion; its effect is comparable with Salicylate ointment.

Dietary Ingredients Requiring Further Research Before Evidence-Based Recommendations Can Be Made for Their Use as an Approach to Mitigating Pain

“…Ingredients were Zingiber officinale [36,42], Eurovita extract 33 [41], Zingiberis rhizoma [39], and EV Ext 77 [37], or dried, powdered ginger [38]. Different extracts of ginger were also combined (i.e., referred to as “ginger-plus” studies) with mastic and sesame oil [40], Zinaxin glucosamine [43,45], purified extracts of various plants [44], or multiple dietary ingredients [45]. Daily doses ranged from 250 to 1,000 mg/d (delivered as a capsule) and 6 g/d (delivered as an ointment) over three to 12 weeks.…”

“…Daily doses ranged from 250 to 1,000 mg/d (delivered as a capsule) and 6 g/d (delivered as an ointment) over three to 12 weeks. Ginger was compared with herbal [44], oral [43,44], and topical [40] pharmacologic interventions, or placebo capsules that were either undescribed [38,41,42] or contained maltodextrin [39], starch [36], coconut oil [37], or magnesium stearate [45]. Studies reported on outcomes including pain (N = 10), physical (N = 7) and global (N = 4) function, health-related quality of life (N = 3), and medication use (N = 1).…”

Anti-inflammatory effect of an Ayurveda polyherbal topical application and exploration of its mechanism of action

“…[28] Topical ginger (Z. officinalis) compress and pack reduced pain and fatigue and improved functionality and satisfaction in OA patients. [29] Herbal compounds are hypothesized to modulate several inflammation triggering factors, pathway mediators and conditions, thereby offering relief in such conditions. [30] In the current study, Upanaha Choornam showed a significant anti-inflammatory activity, comparable to that of standard analgesic Indomethacin.…”

Efficacy and safety of topical Matricaria chamomilla L. (chamomile) oil for knee osteoarthritis: A randomized controlled clinical trial

“…Herbal therapies for OA can be divided into 2 main domains of oral and topical medicines, which were reviewed by The Cochrane Collaboration (36,37). In Iran, there is a special tendency toward the use of herbal remedies (10,38), and several studies have evaluated the efficacy of them for OA, both in vivo and in vitro (39)(40)(41)(42)(43)(44)(45)(46)(47)(48).…”

“…We used sesame oil as an oily vehicle for active constituents of chamomile flower. Sesame oil has demonstrated anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory (56) and anaesthetic activity (56), and beneficial effects in a compound herbal medicine for knee OA (43). In addition, sesamine as the major active constituent of sesame oil was evaluated and proved for its chondroprotective effects in OA model (58).…”