Gastric ulcer and medicinal plants

Gastric ulcer disease is the most common ulcer of the gastrointestinal tract. It is caused by many factors such as drugs, stress or alcohol. Several factors are implicated in the pathogenesis of gastric ulcer. These include increased acid-pepsin secretion, impaired bicarbonate neutralization, impaired mucus secretion and precipitate lesions on the mucosal layer. A number of drugs including prostaglandins analogs, histamine receptor antagonists, proton pump inhibitors, and cytoprotective agents are available for the treatment of gastric ulcer. By the way various side effects of these products such as, hepatotoxicity and anaphylaxis, are not totally managed yet, so medicinal plant as an alternative treatment always has been the focus of many studies. Several natural products have been reported to poses anti-ulcerogenic activity by virtue of their predominant effects on mucosal defensive factors including apple, bananas, Pomegranate, aqueous garlic Chenopodium moquinianum and curcumin. In this book, we tried to collect several plants that we used in treatment of experimental gastric ulcers