Department of Food Science and Nutrition, School of the Environment, University of the Aegean, Lemnos, Greece.
Expert Rev Anti Infect Ther. 2021 Apr;19(4):519-528. doi: 10.1080/14787210.2021.1828061. Epub 2020 Oct 5.
Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are usual diseases caused by different strains of microorganisms. Many antibiotics have been applied for the treatment of these infections. However, the development of multidrug-resistant strains is a major problem in these treatments. As alternative complementary agents, several medicinal plants are often used to prevent and/or treat these diseases.
This review summarized the current evidence about the efficacy of medicinal plants' consumption to prevent and/or co-treat UTIs. The most precise scientific databases, e.g. Medline, Scopus, and Web of Science were comprehensively searched, using relative keywords to identify the relative and animal and human studies.
Current studies supported evidence for potential benefit overall concerning medicinal plants' consumption against UTIs by preventing bacterial adherence and inhibiting inflammation cascades through responding immunologically to bacteria invasion. However, most of the current evidence have been focused on and animal studies, while human studies are currently limited and did not focus on a specific medicinal plant. Thus, well-designed clinical trials for long study periods focused on individual medicinal plants are intensely recommended to delineate their effectiveness on the prevention and/or co-treatment of UTIs.
尿路感染（UTIs）是由不同微生物菌株引起的常见疾病。许多抗生素已被用于治疗这些感染。然而，多药耐药菌株的发展是这些治疗中的一个主要问题。作为替代的补充剂，许多药用植物常被用于预防和/或治疗这些疾病。
本综述总结了关于药用植物消费预防和/或辅助治疗尿路感染的疗效的现有证据。综合使用相对关键词，全面检索了最精确的科学数据库，如 Medline、Scopus 和 Web of Science，以识别相关的和动物及人体研究。
目前的研究支持了药用植物消费在预防尿路感染方面的整体潜在益处，其通过阻止细菌黏附和抑制炎症级联反应，从而对细菌入侵产生免疫反应。然而，目前大多数证据都集中在和动物研究上，而人体研究目前还很有限，并且没有集中在特定的药用植物上。因此，强烈建议进行设计良好的长期临床试验，重点关注个别药用植物，以确定它们在预防和/或辅助治疗尿路感染方面的有效性。
