persian medicine “sahj” in ulcerative colitis remedy:a before-and-after clinical trial

Ulcerative colitis (uc) is an inflammatory bowel disease and its etiology has not fully understoodin conventional medicine. it also influences the quality of life as a result of its recurrenceand progressive clinical course, then, it has been considered an important public healthconcern. this study aimed to evaluate the impact of prescription therapy based on the persianmedicine as a complementary treatment for the mitigation of the symptoms of uc as wellas improvement in the disease severity. a total of 30 uc patients with an age range of 15-70years participated in this clinical trial. they were treated with the “sahj” capsule containing:curcuma longa l., punica granatum l., and terminalia chebula retz. for 4 weeks. the “sahj”capsule was prepared based on the persian medicine resources. the bowel frequency at day/night, urgency of defecation, general health, and blood in stool were assessed pre/post interventionand the results were compared before and after the clinical trial. the “sahj” capsulesignificantly enhanced the clinical findings. there was a significant increase in simple clinicalcolitis activity index (sccai) score in response to the prescription of the “sahj” capsule (7.73± 1.98 before and 4.30 ± 1.12 after the trial) in which general health condition of patients wasincreased by 50% after the clinical trial. bowel frequency at day was remarkably decreased bytotally 15 patients with the scores of 1, 2 and 3 were enrolled to score 0. also, bowel frequencyat night was not statically significant (p = 0.267) in spite of 7 patients were improved theirscore (changed their score from 2 to 1). urgency of defecation (p<0.003) and blood in stool(p<0.0001) were significantly decreased compared with pre-intervention stage. these findingssuggest an appropriate complementary treatment to reduce the symptoms of ulcerative colitis.however, further studies with larger sample size are warranted to assess the efficacy and safetyof the “sahj” capsule in the treatment of uc.