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Review
. 2020 Jan 23:2020:7976130.
doi: 10.1155/2020/7976130. eCollection 2020.

The Impact of Natural Product Dietary Supplements on Patients with Gout: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

Juan Yang  1   2 , Guangxi Li  1   3   4 , Donglin Xiong  2 , Tony Y Chon  1 , Brent A Bauer  1
Affiliations
Review

The Impact of Natural Product Dietary Supplements on Patients with Gout: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

Juan Yang et al. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. .

Abstract

Natural product dietary supplements (NPDS) are frequently used for the treatment of gout, but reliable efficacy and safety data are generally lacking or not well organized to guide clinical decision making. This review aims to explore the impacts of NPDS for patients with gout. An electronic literature search was conducted to retrieve data published in English language from databases from inception to August 14, 2019. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that compared NPDS with or without placebo, diet modification, conventional pharmaceutics, or the other Chinese medicine treatment for gout patients were included. Two authors screened the articles, extracted the data, and assessed the risk of bias of each included trial independently. Meta-analysis was performed using Review Manager version 5.3.5. Results. Nine RCTS were enrolled in this review. The methodological quality of the nine RCTs was poor. The study results showed that in the majority of trials, NPDS demonstrated some degree of therapeutic efficacy for joint swelling, pain, and activity limitation. In contradistinction, serum uric acid (SUA) level (SMD -1.80, 95% CI: -4.45 to 0.86) (p > 0.05) and CRP levels (N = 232; SMD, -0.26; 95% CI, -0.55 to 0.04) (p > 0.05) did not improve significantly. The incidence of adverse events (AEs) was not lower in the participants treated with NPDS (N = 750; RR, 0.47; 95% CI, 0.20-1.11) (p > 0.05). Conclusion. Current existing evidence is not sufficient to provide clinical guidance regarding the efficacy and safety of NPDS as a treatment for gout due to poor trial quality and lack of standardized evaluation criteria. Larger and more rigorously designed RCTs are needed in the future.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PRISMA flow chart.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Risk of bias summary.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Effects of NPDS on the serum uric acid (SUA) levels of patients with gout.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Effects of NPDS therapies on the CRP levels of patients with gout.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Adverse events caused by NPDS interventions in patients with gout.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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