Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2025 Mar;33(3):1289-1301.
doi: 10.1007/s10787-025-01671-8. Epub 2025 Feb 17.

Rutin: a pain-relieving flavonoid

Fatemeh Forouzanfar  1 , Toktam Sahranavard  2 , Aristidis Tsatsakis  3 , Mehrdad Iranshahi  4 , Ramin Rezaee  5   6
Affiliations
Review

Rutin: a pain-relieving flavonoid

Fatemeh Forouzanfar et al. Inflammopharmacology. 2025 Mar.

Abstract

Rutin (vitamin P or rutoside) is a citrus flavonoid glycoside that has shown beneficial health effects in different organs against various conditions including inflammation and pain. The majority of rutin therapeutic benefits are ascribed to its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. This review article discusses studies that investigated pain-relieving activity of rutin and summarizes the reported mechanisms of action. Rutin pain-relieving effect has been studied in streptozotocin-induced diabetes, chronic constriction injury, and oxaliplatin-, formalin-, acetic acid- and glutamate-induced nociception in mice or rats. Based on the literature, rutin analgesic effects are induced through potentiation of antioxidant arsenal, reduction of inflammatory cytokines (e.g., Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and interleukin-1β) levels, suppression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) expressions and modulation of MAPK, NF-κB and Nrf-2/HO-1 signaling. Preclinical findings on rutin pain-relieving activity are promising, however, its safety profile needs to be more thoroughly investigated and clinical trials should be conducted to assess its analgesic effects in humans.

Keywords: Analgesia; Herbal medicines; Inflammatory pain; Natural products; Neuropathy; Phytochemicals.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Conflict of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Abarikwu S, Olufemi P, Lawrence C, Wekere F, Ochulor A, Barikuma A (2017) Rutin, an antioxidant flavonoid, induces glutathione and glutathione peroxidase activities to protect against ethanol effects in cadmium-induced oxidative stress in the testis of adult rats. Andrologia 49:E12696 - DOI
    1. Ahmadzadeh AM, Pourali G, Mirheidari SB, Shirazinia M, Hamedi M, Mehri A, Amirbeik H, Saghebdoust S, Tayarani-Najaran Z, Sathyapalan T (2024) Medicinal plants for the treatment of neuropathic pain: a review of randomized controlled trials. Curr Pharm Biotechnol 25:534–562 - PubMed - DOI
    1. Al-Enazi MM (2013) Ameliorative potential of rutin on streptozotocin-induced neuropathic pain in rat. Afr J Pharm Pharmacol 7:2743–2754 - DOI
    1. Al-Majmaie S, Nahar L, Rahman MM, Nath S, Saha P, Talukdar AD, Sharples GP, Sarker SD (2021) Anti-mrsa constituents from ruta chalepensis (rutaceae) grown in iraq, and in silico studies on two of most active compounds, chalepensin and 6-hydroxy-rutin 3′, 7-dimethyl ether. Molecules 26:1114 - PubMed - PMC - DOI
    1. Alonso-Castro AJ, Rangel-Velázquez JE, Isiordia-Espinoza MA, Villanueva-Solís LE, Aragon-Martinez OH, Zapata-Morales JR (2017) Synergism between naproxen and rutin in a mouse model of visceral pain. Drug Dev Res 78:184–188 - PubMed - DOI

LinkOut - more resources