The Impact of Natural Product Dietary Supplements on Patients with Gout: A Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials
Year: 2020
Type: review
Study designs: Systematic Review, Meta-Analysis
Abstract: Natural product dietary supplements (NPDS) are frequently used for the treatment of gout, but reliable efficacy and safety data are generally lacking or not well organized to guide clinical decision making. This review aims to explore the impacts of NPDS for patients with gout. An electronic literature search was conducted to retrieve data published in English language from databases from inception to August 14, 2019. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that compared NPDS with or without placebo, diet modification, conventional pharmaceutics, or the other Chinese medicine treatment for gout patients were included. Two authors screened the articles, extracted the data, and assessed the risk of bias of each included trial independently. Meta‐analysis was performed using Review Manager version 5.3.5. Results. Nine RCTS were enrolled in this review. The methodological quality of the nine RCTs was poor. The study results showed that in the majority of trials, NPDS demonstrated some degree of therapeutic efficacy for joint swelling, pain, and activity limitation. In contradistinction, serum uric acid (SUA) level (SMD −1.80, 95% CI: −4.45 to 0.86) (p > 0.05) and CRP levels (N = 232; SMD, −0.26; 95% CI, −0.55 to 0.04) (p > 0.05) did not improve significantly. The incidence of adverse events (AEs) was not lower in the participants treated with NPDS (N = 750; RR, 0.47; 95% CI, 0.20–1.11) (p > 0.05). Conclusion. Current existing evidence is not sufficient to provide clinical guidance regarding the efficacy and safety of NPDS as a treatment for gout due to poor trial quality and lack of standardized evaluation criteria. Larger and more rigorously designed RCTs are needed in the future.
DOI: 10.1155/2020/7976130
Language: English
Subfield: Nephrology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,550
OpenAlex ID: W3000987311
