Effect of rhubarb on nutritional status and prognostic recurrence in patients with functional gastrointestinal disorders

Functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGID) are the most common digestive tract diseases in clinical practice, showing an increasing incidence and a shift towards onset at a younger age in recent years. In recent years, the application of traditional Chinese medicine characteristic therapies in various diseases has become increasingly common. For FGID, traditional Chinese medicine characteristic therapies also have great potential. Rhubarb is an excellent herbal medicine and is common in TCM treatment, but it is not clear how effective it is in FGID. In this study, we observed the therapeutic effect of rhubarb acupoint application on FGID, thus providing a new treatment option for FGID. The results showed that patients in the research group treated with rhubarb had a significantly shorter symptom improvement time compared with patients in the control group treated with conventional therapy (P<0.05). Also, the gastrointestinal function after treatment was significantly better in the research group than in the control group (P<0.05). In addition, the nutritional status of the research group was better after treatment, while the prognostic recurrence rate was reduced (P<0.05). These results confirmed that rhubarb is an excellent FGID treatment regimen with high clinical value.