The Efficacy And Safety Of Curcumin For The Treatment Of Major Depressive Disorder : A Systematic Review And Meta-analysis

Objective:Curcumin is a promising intervention for major depressive disorder(MDD).However,the results of the clinical trials were not completely consistnet.We undertook this systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the efficacy and safety of curcumin for MDD.Methods:Pub Med,EMBASE,Psyc INFO,Web of Science,Cochrane Library,CNKI,WANFANG,VIP,CBM and Clinical Trials.gov were searched from the inception up until March 1,2020.The quality of the included studies was assessed and the data was collected independently by two researchers.The State12.0 and Review Manager 5.3 were used for statistical analysis.The outcomes were the change of depressive scale scores,response rates,drop-out rates,and adverse effects rates.Results:A total of 432 MDD patients from 6 trials were subjected to meta-analysis.The pooling results suggested a significant difference in the change of depressive scale scores(SMD=-0.35,95%CI:-0.56,-0.15;I~2=7%)and response rates(OR=3.20,95%CI:1.28,7.99;I~2=35%).However,there was no difference between drop-out rates(OR=0.92,95%CI:0.46,1.84;I~2=0%),the adverse effects rates of digestive symptoms(OR=1.27,95%CI:0.69,2.32;I~2=0%)and the adverse effects rates of neurological symptoms(OR=1.08,95%CI:0.49,2.36;I~2=0%).Conclusion:The results of the meta-analysis suggest that curcumin is a safe and effective intervention for the treatment of MDD.Due to the limited number of included studies and the poor quality of the articles,large-sample,high-quality randomized controlled clinical trials should be conducted to explore the exact efficacy of curcumin in patients with MDD in the future.