Well, if you believe the results of a recent review by the Cochrane Collaboration, an international nonprofit organization that evaluates medical research, the answer would be yes.
But its new analysis of pooled data from 39 studies, which included 3,475 women, is difficult to interpret because many of the studies did not test Chinese herbs against placebos, harmless look-alikes. Moreover, because of methodological weaknesses, studies conducted in China, which many of these were, typically come up with positive findings, when more rigorous studies might not, said Ted Kaptchuk, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who is also a practitioner of Chinese medicine.
Even the authors of the Cochrane review, a team based at the University of Western Sydney in Australia, cautioned that their analysis “should be interpreted with caution due to the generally low methodological quality of the included studies.”
Unlike in Western medicine, where chronic menstrual cramps are lumped into one diagnosis, in Chinese medicine, practitioners consider a wider array of symptoms, and the herbs used vary according to the different diagnoses. While western medicine focuses on lower abdominal pain, for instance, Chinese medicine also includes symptoms such as “retention of cold” and “stagnation of Qi and blood.” (Qi is the energy force that, when blocked, is believed in Chinese medicine to cause all manner of ills.)
Dr. Isaac Schiff, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Massachusetts General Hospital, said that while he is “a fan of trying to use alternative medicine,” many studies of herbs for menstrual cramps have proved “very disappointing.” By contrast, there is ample evidence that ibuprofen and oral contraceptives are quite effective against cramps.
Until there is more solid evidence for the safety and efficacy of herbal remedies, he said, “I’d go with our usual medicines, for which we have knowledge of benefits, risks, and side effects.”