Herbs with anti-lipid effects and their interactions with statins as a chemical anti- hyperlipidemia group drugs: A systematic review

Background: the present systematic review aimed to express the clinical anti-lipid effects ofdifferent types of herbs, as well as described studied interactions between herbal remedies andprescribed drugs for hyperlipidemic patients which were based on in vitro experiments, animalstudies, and empirical clinical experiences.methods: for this systematic review, we explored 2183 published papers about herbal drugsinteractions from november 1967 to august 2014, fulfilling eligibility criteria by searching insome databases such as web of science, medline, scopus, embase, cinahl, and the cochranedatabase. the main keywords used for searching included: herbal medicine, herbs, statin, lipid,and herb-drug interaction.results: among published articles about herb-drug interactions, 185 papers met the initialsearch criteria and among them, 92 papers were potentially retrievable including a descriptionof 17 herbs and medicinal plants. in first step and by reviewing all published manuscripts onbeneficial effects of herbs on serum lipids level, 17 herbs were described to be effective on lipidprofile as lowering serum triglyceride, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol aswell as increasing serum high-density lipoprotein level. some herbs such as celery could evenaffect the hepatic triglyceride concentrations. the herbal reaction toward different types ofstatins is varied so that grapefruit or pomegranate was interacted with only some types ofstatins, but not with all statin types. in this context, administration of herbal materials can leadto decreased absorption of statins or decreased the plasma concentration of these drugs.conclusion: various types of herbs can potentially reduce serum lipid profile with thedifferent pathways; however, the herb-drug interactions may decrease pharmacologicaltherapeutic effects of anti-hyperlipidemic drugs that should be considered when approved herbsare prescribed.