Medicinal Plants As Potential Hemostatic Agents

Purpose: Medicinal plants with a variety of phytochemical ingredients remain a potential source for new drug discovery. The use of medicinal herbs in a wide range of diseases and symptoms, such as bleeding, is prevalent in traditional and ethno medicine worldwide. Thus, this work provides a comprehensive review of medicinal plants or their isolated compounds, with respect to their ethno-medicinal use, which have demonstrated the stimulating effect on the hemostasis process.

Methods: The relevant studies were withdrawn from electronic databases including Pubmed, EMBASE and Web of Science with a structured search methodology.

Results: The total of 17 medicinal plants with hemostatic activity were extracted. The most frequently studied plant families were Compositae, Lamiaceae, Fabaceae, and Asteraceae. Bioactive compounds exerting hemostatic activity included tannins, iridoid glycosides, glycoconjugate, lignan, saponins and phenolic compounds. The most attributed mechanisms include coagulation stimulation via increasing the factor XII activity and plasma fibrinogen levels, the fibrinolysis inhibition, vascular or smooth muscle constriction and platelet aggregation. The most important adverse effects of high dose extract or isolated compounds administration were hepatotoxicity and nephrotoxicity.

Conclusion: This review provides a list of medicinal plants with hemostatic activity that could be used as valuable sources of new plant-based hemostatic agents. Furthermore, this could be practical in detecting possible interactions of plants with anticoagulant, antiplatelet, fibrinolytic and antifibrinolytic medications.