Copyright
©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Methodol. May 20, 2022; 12(3): 132-147
Published online May 20, 2022. doi: 10.5662/wjm.v12.i3.132
Published online May 20, 2022. doi: 10.5662/wjm.v12.i3.132
Nature and mechanism of immune boosting by Ayurvedic medicine: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials
B N Vallish, Medical Writing and Biostatistics, MarksMan Healthcare Communications, Hyderabad 500091, Telangana, India
Dimple Dang, Co-founder, MarksMan Healthcare Communications, Hyderabad 500032, Telangana, India
Amit Dang, Founder and CEO, MarksMan Helathcare Communications Pvt. Ltd, Hyderabad 500091, Telangana, India
Author contributions: Vallish BN contributed to acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data, drafting the article, making critical revisions related to important intellectual content of the manuscript, and final approval; Dang D contributed to acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data, making critical revisions related to important intellectual content of the manuscript, and final approval; Dang A contributed to conception and design of the study, acquisition of data, making critical revisions related to important intellectual content of the manuscript, and final approval.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors deny any conflict of interest.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2020 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2020 Checklist.
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: Amit Dang, MD, Founder and CEO, MarksMan Healthcare Communications, J1309, Amethyst Tower, PBEL City, Peeramcheruvu Village, Rajendra Nagar Mandal, Hyderabad 500091, Telangana, India. amit.d@marksmanhealthcare.com
Received: December 3, 2021
Peer-review started: December 3, 2021
First decision: February 8, 2022
Revised: February 16, 2022
Accepted: April 3, 2022
Article in press: April 3, 2022
Published online: May 20, 2022
Processing time: 166 Days and 19.5 Hours
Peer-review started: December 3, 2021
First decision: February 8, 2022
Revised: February 16, 2022
Accepted: April 3, 2022
Article in press: April 3, 2022
Published online: May 20, 2022
Processing time: 166 Days and 19.5 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Ayurvedic preparations have been anecdotally associated with immune boosting effect in both healthy and sick individuals. Through this systematic review, we explored the nature and mechanism behind this effect by scrutinizing 20 randomized controlled trials reported in 19 articles. While we could find indirect evidence for immune enhancement (by means of reduced illness duration and severity) with some Ayurvedic preparations, the evidence was insufficient to conclude about the exact mechanisms contributing to this phenomenon, although available evidence suggests that enhancements in natural killer cells and T helper cell number and function might contribute.