Systematic review of traditional Chinese medicine in treatment of dizziness.
- 1National Centre for Naturopathic Medicine, Faculty of Health, Southern Cross University, Lismore 2480, Australia.
- 2The University of Technology, Sydney 2007, Australia.
Abstract
Dizziness is a chronic condition that can significantly impact an individual's quality of life (QoL) and increase risk of falls. It is characterised by a sense of environmental motion and loss of balance. It has been proposed that Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) can be used to effectively treat dizziness. This systematic literature review aims to evaluate the effectiveness of CHM on symptoms of dizziness and QoL. PubMed, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Allied and Complementary Medicine Database (AMED) databases were searched between January 2010 to April 2025. Included studies were RCTs that assessed CHM for the treatment of dizziness. Non-RCTs, animal studies, in vitro studies, case reports and review articles were excluded. Primary outcome measures included overall treatment effectiveness, dizziness handicap inventory (DHI), total number of vertigo attacks, total number of days with vertigo attacks and severity of symptoms. A total of ten RCTs were included in this review, all studies used Chinese medicine diagnostic criteria and approached the treatment of dizziness from a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) aetiology. Control interventions differed between studies with some using a placebo while others used experimental and/or positive controls. Duration of treatment ranged from 10 days to 16 weeks. All studies individually found CHM to be clinically effective in the treatment of dizziness (60%-90%) with improvements in symptom severity and QoL. No meta-analysis was conducted due to the high heterogeneity among studies. Safety and tolerability of CHM was high, however adverse event reporting was absent or minimal, limiting the depth of safety analysis. CHM has the potential to be safe and effective long-term treatment option in the management of patients experiencing acute and chronic presentation of dizziness.
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BibTeX
@article{mcmahon2026systematic,
title = {{Systematic review of traditional Chinese medicine in treatment of dizziness.}},
author = {Charlotte McMahon and Chris Zaslawski and Vanessa Vigar and Nicole Hannan and Sophia Gerontakos and Janet Schloss},
journal = {Chinese herbal medicines},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.1016/j.chmed.2026.08.008},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42948396},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Systematic review of traditional Chinese medicine in treatment of dizziness.
AU - Charlotte McMahon
AU - Chris Zaslawski
AU - Vanessa Vigar
AU - Nicole Hannan
AU - Sophia Gerontakos
AU - Janet Schloss
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/22
JO - Chinese herbal medicines
DO - 10.1016/j.chmed.2026.08.008
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42948396
AB - Dizziness is a chronic condition that can significantly impact an individual's quality of life (QoL) and increase risk of falls. It is characterised by a sense of environmental motion and loss of balance. It has been proposed that Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) can be used to effectively treat dizziness. This systematic literature review aims to evaluate the effectiveness of CHM on symptoms of dizziness and QoL. PubMed, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Allied and Complementary Medicine Database (AMED) databases were searched between January 2010 to April 2025. Included studies were RCTs that assessed CHM for the treatment of dizziness. Non-RCTs, animal studies, in vitro studies, case reports and review articles were excluded. Primary outcome measures included overall treatment effectiveness, dizziness handicap inventory (DHI), total number of vertigo attacks, total number of days with vertigo attacks and severity of symptoms. A total of ten RCTs were included in this review, all studies used Chinese medicine diagnostic criteria and approached the treatment of dizziness from a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) aetiology. Control interventions differed between studies with some using a placebo while others used experimental and/or positive controls. Duration of treatment ranged from 10 days to 16 weeks. All studies individually found CHM to be clinically effective in the treatment of dizziness (60%-90%) with improvements in symptom severity and QoL. No meta-analysis was conducted due to the high heterogeneity among studies. Safety and tolerability of CHM was high, however adverse event reporting was absent or minimal, limiting the depth of safety analysis. CHM has the potential to be safe and effective long-term treatment option in the management of patients experiencing acute and chronic presentation of dizziness.
SN - 1674-6384
SN - 2589-3610
ER -