Medicinal Plants for Gastrointestinal Diseases

Introduction

Gastrointestinal diseases are diseases affecting food intake, drinking water, and general health. Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), peptic ulcer disease (PUD), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), functional gastrointestinal disorder (FGD), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), ulcerative colitis (UC), are several popular forms of digestive diseases. Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is a widespread condition with a rate as high as 10%-20% in the western countries, less than 5% in Asia (Badillo & Francis, 2014). The disease has various symptoms such as clinically troublesome heartburn, regurgitation, chest pain. There are also other atypical symptoms that may be associated with GERD such as: nausea, epigastric pain, dyspepsia, and belching. The protein targets of treatment for GERD are histamine H2 receptor (H2R) or proton-pump (Katz et al., 2013).

The statistical incidence of peptic ulcer disease (PUD) from hospitalization data is approximately 0.03–0.17% and 0.10–0.19% physicians diagnosed PUD (Sung et al., 2009). The main symptom of peptic ulcer disease is stomach pain. In addition, some more severe cases can lead to complications such as gastroduodenal hemorrhage and perforation of the stomach, which is the main cause of high mortality in patients with peptic ulcer disease. The most common cause of PUD is related to the side effects of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and the presence of Helicobacter pylori bacteria. The goal of most medicines is therefore close to GERD in addition to treating the etiology like antibiotics (Fashner & Gitu, 2015).

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a chronic digestive disorder that affects approximately 3–20% of the population of the United States. In Vietnam, the incidence of this disease is about 15-20%, it is common in people between the ages of 40-60. Poor knowledge of the pathophysiology and causes of IBS is provided. IBS has no usual signs and it is only discovered when the patient experiences abdominal pain along with bowel abnormalities such as diarrhea or constipation and general weakness if no abnormalities are present. morphological, histological or inflammatory when there is no the abnormal morphological, histological or inflammatory markers (Grundmann & Yoon, 2010). Several reports have lately demonstrated that the etiology of IBS is attributable in part to changes in the function of the nerves that feed the gastrointestinal tract, activation of the immune system and psychological causes. Enteric P2X receptors may affect gastrointestinal activities like propulsion and secretion, and the drugs acting at these receptors could be useful for treatment IBS (Galligan, 2004). Dyspepsia is known to signify chronic or episodic symptoms of abdominal pain or nausea and it involves the upper gastrointestinal tract (Heading, 1991). Functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGD) are common, accounting for up to 50% of gastroenterology referrals (Jackson et al., 2000). FGD is a condition whose Symptoms should be clear to allow a diagnosis of FGD for at least 12 weeks of the previous year. Of course, it has exceptions. An example of an exception is persistent abdominal pain that requires symptoms for six months, while other minors while anorectal pathologies only require symptoms for a few weeks. The cause is not clear so most medicines treat symptoms primarily (Drossman, 1999).