Traditional Sudanese Medicine for Gastrointestinal and Hepatobiliary Disorders: A Narrative Review

Herbs such as Mentha piperita, Cymbopogon citratus, Zingiber officinale, Cichorium intybus, Elettaria cardamomum, Acacia nilotica, Boswellia papyrifera, and Balanites aegyptiaca are part of the Sudanese medicinal plants used to treat internal diseases, especially since inflammations of the digestive system are common across different regions of Sudan. These plants are widely used in Sudanese traditional medicine for gastrointestinal complaints, and their potential benefits warrant further investigation. This article reviews the availability of these herbs and highlights their use as traditional alternatives to pharmaceutical medicines in Sudan. It uses current data by manually screening the titles, and in some cases the abstracts, of retrieved articles containing the following keywords: “medicinal herbs,” “Sudanese medicinal herbs,” “traditional medicine,” “healers,” “digestive system disorder,” “Helicobacter pylori,” (H. pylori) and “jaundice” from the electronic databases PubMed and Google Scholar. Preference has been given to scientific articles, reports, and literature published within the past five years.