Traditional medicine in kidney diseases in Burkina Faso

Kidney diseases are becoming public health problem worldwide, particularly in Africa. Kidney symptoms are frequent in African population witch have recourse to traditional medicine for primary cares. For a better knowledge of medicinal plants used for the treatment of kidney symptoms, we conducted a prospective study from January to March 2007 to collect the opinion of traditional heaters in the area of three towns (Ouagadougou, Ziniare, Fada NGourma) of Burkina Faso. Thirty traditional heaters were interrogated and results showed that they had limited knowledge on the kidney, urine origin (70% do not know it) and kidney diseases symptoms. Eighty-three percent of traditional heaters found that the origin of kidney symptoms was related to food supplementation. We identify 61 medicinal plants related to 30 families and 51 genders. Combretum micranthum, Chrysantellum americanum and Tamarindus indica were the most frequent species plants under use. This traditional use is justified par bibliographic data on few plants. In conclusion, although traditional heaters have limited knowledge on kidney, they continue to provide medicinal plants to treat kidney symptoms. There is a great need, in Burkina Faso, for studies to define the medicinal plants inventory, their evaluation use, and their effects on the kidneys diseases. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier Masson SAS on behalf of the Association Societe de nephrologie.