Single remedies for Khafaghan in Iranian Traditional Medicine

“Khafaghan” is defined as an unusual heartbeat or skipping sensation of heart beating in Iranian Traditional Medicine (ITM). In this point of view، it has different types and also various kinds of treatments from therapeutic diet and vensection or cupping therapy to oral، topical and inhalation drugs. In the other hand،”Palpitations” (the uncomfortable awareness of a beating heart) which can be regarded as a kind of khafaghan is one of the most common complaints in patients referring to cardiologists. Considering that in modern medicine، these patients have a much distress and some cases are known to be difficult to treat، also persecutive side effects of drugs، searching the ancient book of ITM in order to find new herbal medicines as candidates for further research is a feasible solution. This is a descriptive review article. A search of MEDLINE (PubMed) database revealed that any similar study has not been done yet. In this study، main ITM (Iranian Traditional Medicine) literatures about single remedies were considered. Then، six of the most important and valid references were chosen، with Persian or Arabic language and covering about 8 centuries of time. Effective single remedies for Khafaghan were found by searching the related keywords in the literatures. At the end، they were ranked by their acquired scores and most important remedies were chosen. The eight remedies with highest scores were: Otroj (Citrus medica var. cedara)، Ass (Myrtus communis)، Aftimun (Cuscuta epithtmum)، Mineral Antidote، Bashagh، Badranjbuye (Melissa officinalis)، Tabashir (Bambusa arundinacea) and Vard (Rosa spp). Regarding the herbal origin، and majority of frequeny in literature and general indication for all kind of khafaghan، It seems that Badranjbuye is the best and then Tabashir،Otroj، Ass and Aftimun are the more suitable candidates for the next studies.