(Retrieved from: https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/119093#section=2D-Structure).
In this review, we search the scientific literature to identify the health benefits of artichoke. This plant has been used for treating health conditions since ancient times and is still largely utilised by healthcare and herbal practitioners. Research has focused on its properties and there is increasing interest in the different beneficial effects and the molecular mechanisms involved in these activities. Our work has great significance, as it includes the latest research findings on this topic.
2. Methods
We investigated the beneficial effects of artichoke on human health, searching for scientific articles in the PubMed database (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/). The following keywords were used: "artichoke", "Cynara scolymus", "artichoke therapeutic effects", "Cynara scolymus therapeutic effects", "artichoke properties", "artichoke health benefits", "artichoke health-promoting properties", "artichoke phytotherapy", "Cynara scolymus phytotherapy", "artichoke disease treatment" and "Cynara scolymus disease treatment". The article types selected in PubMed were: clinical trials, randomized controlled trials, books and documents. We included only previous studies relating to the topic of this review and written in English. We excluded reviews, systematic reviews, meta-analyses and articles which show only negative results or adverse effects of artichoke. We chose the scientific studies through an initial screening by reading titles and abstracts. In a second moment, we read the whole texts to find the proper scientific articles.
3. Results and Discussion
The results of literature search indicate that 1374 articles are included in PubMed. We chose 119 studies after article screening and we identified 17 health-promoting properties of artichoke (Table 1).