Lavender and dodder combined herbal syrup versus citalopram in major depressive disorder with anxious distress: A double-blind randomized trial

Aromatherapy for the brain: Lavender's healing effect on epilepsy, depression, anxiety, migraine, and Alzheimer's disease: A review article

Neurological diseases affect the nervous system, including the brain, spinal cord, cranial nerves, nerve roots, autonomic nervous system, neuromuscular junctions, and muscles. Herbal medicine has long been used to cure these diseases. One of these plants is lavender, which is composed of various compounds, including terpenes, such as linalool, limonene, triterpenes, linalyl acetate, alcohols, ketones, polyphenols, coumarins, cineole, and flavonoids. In this review, the literature was searched using scientific search engines and databases (Google Scholar, Science Direct, Scopus, and PubMed) for papers published between 1982 and 2020 via keywords, including review, lavender, and neurological disorders. This plant exerts its healing effect on many diseases, such as anxiety and depression through an inhibitory effect on GABA. The anti-inflammatory effects of this plant have also been documented. It improves depression by regulating glutamate receptors and inhibiting calcium channels and serotonergic factors, such as SERT. Its antiepileptic mechanism is due to an increase in the inhibitory effect of GABA and potassium current and a decrease in sodium current. Therefore, many vegetable oils are also used in herbal medicine. In this review, the healing effect of lavender on several neurological disorders, including epilepsy, depression, anxiety, migraine, and Alzheimer's disease was investigated. All findings strongly support the traditional uses of lavender. More clinical studies are needed to investigate the effect of the plants' pharmacological active constituents on the treatment of life-threatening diseases in humans. The limitations of this study are the low quality and the limited number of clinical studies. Different administration methods of lavender are one of the limitations of this review.

Efficacy and tolerability of Lavandula angustifolia in treating patients with the diagnosis of depression: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials

Pharmacotherapy is the conventional treatment for depression, with only half of the patients responding to the first trial of monotherapy with first-line medicines. One way to overcome this resistance is to use complementary and alternative medicine. The antidepressant effects of Lavandula angustifolia, which is commonly called lavender, have been investigated in previous studies. This study aims to provide the first systematic review of lavender in treating patients with depression diagnosis. ISI Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, Embase, PsycINFO, Google Scholar, and three trial registries were searched until May 2020 to find randomized controlled trials on lavender for depressed patients. The primary outcome was difference between the intervention and control groups in changing depression scores from baseline to endpoint. The included studies were assessed for effect size and methodological quality. Seven clinical trials were identified, in which 852 patients were studied. In six trials, the effectiveness of lavender in treating depression was reported, as being more pronounced adjunct to a typical antidepressant in one study. Significant reported side effects include headaches and eructation. Lavender is beneficial, tolerable, and safe in treating depression. Despite obtaining promising results, they are not enough to recommend prescribing lavender to depressed patients. Further high-quality, large-scale studies for rectifying the shortcomings of existing studies are recommended.