Traditional and Recent Evidence on Five Phytopharmaceuticals from Rosa damascena Herrm.

Damask rose or Rosa damascena Herrm. is one of the most widely-used medicinal herbs in Iranian Traditional Medicine (ITM). Because of different types of phytochemicals such as flavonoids, glycosides, terpenes, and anthocyanins, R. damascena flowers have a wide range of pharmacological effects. Five traditional Rosa phytopharmaceuticals are “Golangebin”/ “Golqand” (the mixture of petals in honey/sugar), “Jollab”, rose oil, rose water, and rose syrup. In the current study, traditional information about these phytopharmaceuticals was extracted from three medieval manuscripts including “Al-Shamil fi al-Tibb” (13th century AD), “Qarabadin Salehi” (1766), and “Qarabadin Kabir” (1780). Articles on R. damascena petal were found by searching Pubmed, Scopus, and Google Scholar till June 2018. They were mainly related to effectiveness on CNS and GI systems. Numerous studies have been performed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of R. damascena extracts and essential oil, but little has been focused on these phytopharmaceuticals as complementary therapies for the mentioned effects. Comparing recent findings and traditional knowledge of these R. damascena phytopharmaceuticals shows a wide gap between these two viewpoints. Therefore, numerous opportunities are provided to evaluate traditional therapeutic notions about R. damascena phytopharmaceuticals leading to increase for their chances of application.