O uso de guaraná (Paullinia Cupana) como suplemento dietético para fadiga em pacientes com câncer: uma revisão sistemática com metanálise

Abstract

Introduction: Cancer is a disease of extreme relevance to public health, because it is among the top four causes of death in the world. Although their treatment has evolved Guarana (Paullinia cupana), is a plant studied for this purpose. over the years, the adverse effects arising from the treatment are still present. Among them, fatigue is one of the most reported, being debilitating and disabling. There are practices, in addition to drug treatments, that aim to mitigate these symptoms, like food supplementation. Guarana (Paullinia cupana), is a plant studied for this purpose. The objective of the present study was to carry out a systematic review with a meta-analysis to assess evidence about the use of guarana fruit to manage fatigue in cancer patients. Results: A total of 383 studies was found and, of these, seven were included in the review, for a total of 427 cancer patients. The population most covered in these studies were breast cancer. The instruments used to analyze fatigue were: the Brief Fatigue Inventory (BFI), the Chalder Fatigue Scale, the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Fatigue (FACIT-FATIGUE), and the Piper scale. Only two studies showed a low risk of bias in all categories. Meta-analysis was conducted for three studies about breast cancer, which presented sufficient data. The use of guarana did not reduce cancer-related fatigue compared with placebo groups (mean of -0.02 [95% CI -1.54, 1.50]; p=0.98)) and the quality of evidence according to GRADE was very low. Conclusion: Of the studies analyzed, most have a high risk of bias and low quality of evidence. Thus, in order to have a recommendation on the applicability of Guarana in improving fatigue, it is necessary to carry out more studies with higher methodological quality.