Sains Malaysiana, 2018;47:2741-2755.

Abstract

Ficus carica, a native plant to the Middle East and Western Asia, is of high value in folk medicine. The therapeutic potential
of Ficus carica has led to the extensive studies in recent years, focusing on evaluating and validating its pharmacological
effect. The present systematic review summarizes the effectiveness of Ficus carica on promoting bone health focusing on
osteoporosis and rheumatoid arthritis via mineral contents and RANKL pathway. The search was done with Medline via
Ebscohost, Scopus and Google Scholar databases to obtain relevant articles published between 1946 and December
2016. The main inclusion criteria were research articles published in English that reported effect of Ficus carica on
bone health. The literature search returned 716 potentially relevant articles, whereby 5 met the inclusion criteria. This
systematic review concludes Ficus carica plays an important role in the promotion of bone health and can be a potential
pharmaceutical product in the future.