Significance of Medicinal Plant used for the Treatment of Peptic Ulcer

Peptic ulcer disease is an imbalance between offensive and defensive gastric factors. This is a major cause of mortality in developing countries. This has attracted several scientists foe their research contributions to this area. Peptic ulcer disease is a serious gastrointestinal disorder that requires a well targeted therapeutic strategy. A number of drugs including proton pump inhibitors and H2 receptor antagonists are available for the treatment of peptic ulcer, but clinical evaluation of these drugs has shown incidence of relapses, side effects and drug interactions. This has been the rational for the development of new antiulcer drugs and the novel formulations that extend to herbal drugs. Good scientific confirmation of traditional knowledge of drugs for treatment of various disorders has made herbal approach a scientific budding area of interest now days. This review article includes physiological aspects of peptic ulcer disease and list of herbal drugs which are used in the treatment of peptic ulcer. Here we have highlighted some of the important plants reported for their anti-ulcer and ulcer healing properties. Ayurvedic knowledge supported by modern science is necessary to isolate, characterise, and standardise the active constituents from herbal sources for antiulcer activity.