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Review
. 2022 Jun 7;14(2):16.
doi: 10.31083/j.fbs1402016.

An Updated Review on The Properties of Melissa officinalis L.: Not Exclusively Anti-anxiety

Wissam Zam  1 , Cristina Quispe  2 , Javad Sharifi-Rad  3 , María Dolores López  4 , Mauricio Schoebitz  5 , Miquel Martorell  6 , Farukh Sharopov  7 , Patrick Valere Tsouh Fokou  8 , Abhay Prakash Mishra  9 , Deepak Chandran  10 , Manoj Kumar  11 , Jen-Tsung Chen  12 , Raffaele Pezzani  13   14
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Free article
Review

An Updated Review on The Properties of Melissa officinalis L.: Not Exclusively Anti-anxiety

Wissam Zam et al. Front Biosci (Schol Ed). .
Free article

Abstract

Melissa officinalis L. is a plant of the Lamiaceae family known in numerous countries for its medicinal activities. This plant has been used since ancient times to treat different disorders, including gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, neurological, psychological conditions. M. officinalis contains several phytochemicals such as phenolic acids, flavonoids, terpenoids, and many others at the basis of its pharmacological activities. Indeed, the plant can have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic, antimicrobial, neuroprotective, nephroprotective, antinociceptive effects. Given its consolidated use, M. officinalis has also been experimented with clinical settings, demonstrating interesting properties against different human diseases, such as anxiety, sleeping difficulties, palpitation, hypertension, depression, dementia, infantile colic, bruxism, metabolic problems, Alzheimer's disease, and sexual disorders. As for any natural compound, drug, or plant extract, also M. officinalis can have adverse effects, even though the reported events are very rare and the plant can be considered substantially safe. This review has been prepared with a specific research strategy, interrogating different databases with the keyword M. officinalis. Moreover, this work analyzes the properties of this plant updating currently available literature, with a special emphasis on human studies.

Keywords: Melissa officinalis L.; clinical trials; health properties; lemon balm; phytochemicals; phytotherapy.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. JTC is serving as one of the Guest Editor of this journal. We declare that JTC had no involvement in the peer review of this article and has no access to information regarding its peer review. Full responsibility for the editorial process for this article was delegated to GCA.

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