effect of boswellia papyrifera on cognitive impairment in multiple sclerosis.

background: cognitive  impairment  is one of the  most crucial disorders  among  multiple  sclerosis (ms) patients. since  ms  is  an inflammatory disease   and   boswellia papyrifera has anti-inflammatory effects, the influence of b. papyrifera  on  cognitive  impairment   in  ms patients   has been investigated  in the present study. methods: in this clinical trial, 80 ms patients  who referred to the clinic of shafa hospital, kerman, iran were selected. having completed a written  consent  form, patients  with relapsing remitting ms, with no occurrence of a new attack throughout 1 month  before the study, with no pregnancy or breastfeeding entered the study. the patients  were randomly divided into two groups; then brief international cognitive assessment for ms (bicams) test was carried out. one group received b. papyrifera (capsule 300 mg, twice a day) while the other group received placebo with the same dose  for 2 months. after 2 months  of treatment, bicams was redone  and  changes  were  analyze .the significant change value on the before-after bicams points were considered  to be 8, 13, and 7 points for the symbol digit modality  test (sdmt),  the  california verbal  learning  test (cvlt),  and  the  brief visual-spatial  memory  test  revised (bvmt-r), respectively. results:  the  patients’  mean  age  was 36.58     8.50  years. the mean duration of disease was 7.41    4.13 years. about 84.2% (n = 64) of the patients  was female. in the bvmt-r, 13 patients  (34.2%), who had  already taken  b. papyrifera, were shown to have significant improvement compared  to the  placebo  group  with  no  improvement  (p <  0.  001). about  12 and  8 patients  in the  treatment and  placebo groups in the sdmt, respectively (p = 0.200) and 17 and 12 patients  in the treatment and placebo groups in the cvlt, respectively (p = 0.170) had signi@cant change values. conclusion: b. papyrifera showed significant improvement in  visuospatial  memory,  but   had   no  effect  on  verbal memory and information processing speed.