HERBAL TREATMENT ALTERNATIVES FOR PEPTIC ULCER DISEASE

From the ancient times, plants have afforded themselves for the treatment of wide variety of diseases. This herbal basket of the nature has been explored in this review to highlight some of its potential herbs for the cure of Peptic Ulcer Disease (PUD). The motto behind the review on PUD was due to the wide spreading nature of peptic ulcer in all class of population, which may be due to the rapidly changing food habits and stress, causing an imbalance between the gastric offensive and defensive factors. Plants are getting more reliability in current days, because they lack significant side effects and are safe. On the other hand, the synthetic antiulcer drugs are constantly reported to possess critical adverse effects like arrhythmia, gynaecomastia, impotency, arthralgia etc. The relapse rate of ulcer has also been reported to be high in such molecules. A few plants have been reviewed to bring their mechanism of anti-ulcerogenic properties to the front, to promote more research on them. Some phytoconstituents have been discussed along with the research conducted by researchers in different ulcer models for better understanding the activity of the plants. The review may hopefully put some light on this particular section of research oriented towards searching new herbal moieties to treat the PUD. Keywords: Ulcerogenic, H. pylori , Defensive factors, ethnomedicinal, phytoconstituents, gastroprotective.