Sesame a Treatment of Menstrual Bleeding Cessation in Iranian Traditional Medicine: Results From a Pilot Study

Abstract

Background: There is an increasing demand for alternative medicine methods in treatment of menstrual bleeding cessation and oligomenorrhea. Sesamum indicum L. is a well-known medication in the Avicenna traditional medicine to induce menstrual bleeding in women with oligomenorrhea. Objectives: This study is the first effort to evaluate the efficacy of this treatment on the patients suffers from oligomenorrhea. Patients and Methods: A pilot study was carried out on 21 cases of oligomenorrhea having complaint of menstruation retard for more than two weeks admitted to Beheshti hospital clinic. Patients who had not used hormonal chemical or herbal drugs and were not pregnant or lactating were enrolled and received sesame once daily for 7 days per oral. Patients were followed for 7 weeks after drug administration. Result: 85% of the patients experienced menstrual bleeding after receiving sesame treatment by two weeks. The mean interval before menstruation upon treatment was 9.8 days while the mean postponement time after the last patients’ menstruation, before treatment, was 92 days. Blood flow and pain during menstruation were not significantly higher than past menstruation episodes. No untoward side effect was noticed during clinical trial. The next menstruation episode follow up demonstrated that 80% of the patients had menstruation without using any drug with a delay of less than 2 weeks. Conclusion: In conclusion, the results of this pilot study demonstrated that Sesamum indicum L. may be an effective choice in inducing bleeding in women with oligomenorrhea that has ignorable side effects compare to the current hormonal therapies. Thus, stronger clinical trials with control group are recommended to strength this hypothesis.