ReviewFrontiers in pharmacology2014
Echinacea and elderberry-should they be used against upper respiratory tract infections during pregnancy?
Review in Frontiers in pharmacology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Elderberry Supplementation Reduces Cold Duration and Symptoms in Air-Travellers: A Randomized, Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial.Nutrients · 2016Trial
- Elderberry (Sambucus nigra L.): an ethnopharmacological, phytochemical and biological review for a prospective nutraceutical plant.Inflammopharmacology · 2026Review
- Herbal Medicines-Are They Effective and Safe during Pregnancy?Pharmaceutics · 2022Review
- Towards Advances in Medicinal Plant Antimicrobial Activity: A Review Study on Challenges and Future Perspectives.Microorganisms · 2021Review
- Near-Infrared Spectroscopy as a Rapid Screening Method for the Determination of Total Anthocyanin Content in Sambucus Fructus.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Article
- Pregnancy outcomes after prenatal exposure to echinacea: the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study.European journal of clinical pharmacology · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This review evaluates the safety of echinacea and elderberry in pregnancy. Both herbs are commonly used to prevent or treat upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs) and surveys have shown that they are also used by pregnant women. The electronic databases PubMed, ISI Web of Science, AMED, EMBASE, Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database, and Cochrane Library were searched from inception to November 2013. Relevant references from the acquired articles were included. No clinical trials concerning safety of either herb in pregnancy were identified. One prospective human study and two small animal studies of safety of echinacea in pregnancy were identified. No animal- or human studies of safety of elderberry in pregnancy were identified. Twenty clinical trials concerning efficacy of various echinacea preparations in various groups of the population were identified between 1995 and 2013. Three clinical trials concerning efficacy of two different elderberry preparations were identified between 1995 and 2013. The results from the human and animal studies of Echinacea sp. are not sufficient to conclude on the safety in pregnancy. The prospective, controlled study in humans found no increase in risk of major malformations. The efficacy of Echinacea sp. is dubious based on the identified studies. Over 2000 persons were given the treatment, but equal amounts of studies of good quality found positive and negative results. All three clinical trials of Elderberry concluded that it is effective against influenza, but only 77 persons were given the treatment. Due to lack of evidence of efficacy and safety, health care personnel should not advice pregnant women to use echinacea or elderberry against upper respiratory tract infection.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.