Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jul 21, 2025; 31(27): 108524
Published online Jul 21, 2025. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v31.i27.108524
Complementary medicines and ginseng for inflammatory bowel disease-rooted in science, but will it bear fruit?
Tamar Schildkraut, Ashish R Srinivasan, Andrew Nguyen, Mark Lai, Abhinav Vasudevan
Tamar Schildkraut, Ashish R Srinivasan, Andrew Nguyen, Mark Lai, Abhinav Vasudevan, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Eastern Health, Melbourne 3128, Victoria, Australia
Ashish R Srinivasan, Department of Medicine, University of Melbourne, Melbourne 3084, Victoria, Australia
Ashish R Srinivasan, Abhinav Vasudevan, Eastern Clinical School, Monash University, Melbourne 3128, Victoria, Australia
Author contributions: Schildkraut T drafted the paper; Srinivasan AR and Vasudevan A provided supervision; Schildkraut T, Nguyen A, and Lai M contributed to review of the literature; Vasudevan A conceptualized, outlined, and coordinated the writing of the paper. All authors contributed to the edited and revised the manuscript and approved the final version to publish.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Dr. Vasudevan reports personal fees from Ferring, Abbvie, and Pfizer, outside the submitted work.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Abhinav Vasudevan, PhD, Associate Professor, FRACP, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Eastern Health, 8 Arnold Street, Melbourne 3128, Victoria, Australia. abhinav.vasudevan@monash.edu
Received: April 17, 2025
Revised: May 28, 2025
Accepted: July 3, 2025
Published online: July 21, 2025
Processing time: 96 Days and 5.9 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Ginseng and other complementary and alternative therapies are frequently used in patients with inflammatory bowel disease. While preclinical studies and in vivo models demonstrate the therapeutic potential of several traditional and herbal remedies, quality clinical trials are scarce. Clinicians should be aware of the current evidence base, including proposed mechanisms of action and available clinical data. This editorial provides a focused overview to support informed, evidence-based discussions with patients.