Herbal compounds in the treatment of polycystic ovary syndrome: an updated systematic review

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common endocrine disorder in women of reproductive age and one of the important causes of infertility due to a lack of ovulation. Given the consideration of herbal medicines in the treatment of this condition, this systematic review was conducted to investigate the effect of herbal compounds on the treatment of PCOS. In this systematic review, all original articles on human subjects investigating the effect of medicinal plants on PCOS that were published in Farsi or English were searched in Persian (Magiran and Scientific Information Database [SID]), and English (PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, and Web of Science) databases until August 2025. Exclusion criteria included duplicated publications and the unavailability of full-text articles. Search keywords included polycystic ovary syndrome, medicinal plants, systematic review, Traditional medicine, clinical trial, case-control study, female infertility, and women in Persian and their English equivalents. Of the primary 182 articles, the full text of 36 articles was screened based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Quality assessment, including risk of bias, was performed using the Jadad checklist. Finally, ten related articles were included in the study. Out of the 10 included studies (seven conducted in Iran and one each in China, the United States, and Oman, with a total of 548 participants) were included in the review. According to the study’s results, many herbal medicines, including green tea, caraway, black mint tea, ginger, Fennel, Nigella sativa, and bitter olive, could have a significant effect on improving biochemical, hormonal, and symptoms of PCOS. Medicinal plants, due to their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and hormone-regulatory properties, can be used to treat or reduce the complications of PCOS. However, the heterogeneity of the studies in terms of intervention, duration, and sample size requires further research to confirm the findings.