Use of Unani Medicine as a Potent Alternative in Oral Health Promotion: A Narrative Review

Background: Oral diseases are one of the most serious public health issues and the most common chronic diseases afflicting humanity. Despite the abundance of new medicines and technologies for coping with them, an increasing number of patients are searching for simpler, milder therapies to improve their quality of life and minimize iatrogenic complications. Unani herbal regimens, diets, and medications, as described in Unani literature, have been shown to be safe and effective in maintaining oral health. Aim of the study: The aim of this study is to look into and identify significant traditional Unani oral hygiene maintaining methods, as well as how they relate to today's oral hygiene preservation arsenal. Materials and Methods: Information regarding oral health-promoting practices was taken from published materials, ancient and modern recorded classical scripts, Unani pharmacopeias, and databases such as Pub Med, Web of Science,Science Direct, and Google Scholar. Results: Unani medicine has a huge description of various medical herbs with antibacterial and antimicrobial properties, according to ancestral medicinal books and healers with the current scientific shreds of evidence. Several experimental researches has confirmed that these medicinal herbs have antibacterial, anti-infective, antimicrobial, and antiplaque properties, suggesting that they could be useful as a complementary treatment for periodontal diseases or as oral health promoters. However, there is still a scarcity of studies to back up their use and effectiveness. Conclusion: It is critical to scientifically demonstrate the underlying benefits of Unani medicine, as well as to elucidate and prove their potential therapeutic uses, for the sake of promoting oral health. We discovered papers that support or refute their traditional use and we conclude that medicinal plants use to treat oral conditions or add to the dental pharmacological arsenal should be relied on scientific investigations that confirm their suitability for orodental treatments