Chinese herbs may do more to ease menstrual cramps

William Atkins
Friday, 19 October 2007 21:32

Science - Health

Australian researchers have found that it is better to take Chinese herbs than drugs, acupuncture, or heat compression for the relief of dysmenorrhea that includes menstrual cramps.               

Dysmenorrhea is a condition that causes cramping and/or painful menstruation in women. It involves menstrual periods that consist of intermittent-but-sharp pain or aching-but-dull pain in the lower abdominal and/or pelvic regions of the female body.

Their study (“Chinese herbal medicine for primary dysmenorrhoea”), found in the October 18, 2007 online issue of the journal Cochrane Library, involved 3,475 women in 36 studies in China, and one study, each, in Taiwan, Japan, and the Netherlands.

The results from the researchers, headed by Xiaoshu Zhu from the Center for Complementary Medicine Research (University of Western Sydney, Australia), conclude that Chinese herbal medicines are superior to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), oral contraceptive pills (OCPs), acupuncture therapy, and heat compression with a hot water bottle.

Their paper states, “Conventional treatment for primary dysmenorrhoea (PD) has a failure rate of 20% to 25% and may be contraindicated or not tolerated by some women. Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) may be a suitable alternative.”

The other collaborators in the study are: M. Proctor, A. Bensoussan, C.A. Smith, and E. Wu.

Twenty-one different Chinese herbal medicines (CHMs) were used in various combinations. They included Chinese angelica root (danggui), Chinese motherwort (yimucao), fennel fruit (huixiang), Szechuan lovage root (chuanxiong), cinnamon bark (rougui), liquorice root (gancao), nut-grass rhizome (xiangfu), red peony root (chishao), and white peony root (baishao),. Such herbal medicines are thought to increase blood flow, which helps to bring warm throughout the body, increase energy levels, and enhance functions of some of the  major organs such as the liver and kidneys.

The researchers acknowledge that further medical studies are needed to verify their results, but are hopeful that their results will be verified in future scientific studies. They state, “The review found promising evidence supporting the use of CHM for primary dysmenorrhoea; however, results are limited by the poor methodological quality of the included trials.”