Palash Mandal, Tarun Kumar Misra and Prabhat Kumar Basu
Keywords: Astilbe rivularis, solvent fractions, free radicals scavenging, antilipid peroxidation, anti-inflammatory.
Abstract: The dried rhizomes of Astilbe rivularis Buch-Ham ex D.Don have been traditionally used for the treatment of inflammatory diseases, headache and infertility from the ancient period in India. The physiological mechanisms of action, especially anti-inflammatory effect of this plant extract are not yet well understood. In this study, we examined the free radical scavenging effect and anti-lipid peroxidation in successively extracted, purified solvent fractions. The fractions execute significant free radical scavenging potentiality on DPPH (95.23%) at dose of 100 ?g/ml, superoxide scavenging activity (80.40%) and anti-lipid peroxidation (45.83%) at the same doses, which are comparable with reference standard. We also investigated the anti-inflammatory effect of this plant extract on rat. The oral application at the dose of 100 mg and 200 mg/kg body weight of this plant extract promoted healing action (56.20 % inhibition at the dose of 200 mg/kg after 24 hrs) on carrageenan induced rat paw inflammation; which is also comparable with standard of non steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (Ibuprofen) 20 mg/kg body weight (48.18% inhibition after 24 hours). The observations from these studies suggest the ethno medicinal use of Astilbe rivularis which could be commercially exploited by the pharmaceutical industry.
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