ANALGESIC AND CYTOTOXIC ACTIVITIES OF THREE REPUTED BANGLADESHI MEDICINAL PLANTS

Abstract

Plants have been one of the important sources of medicines since the beginning of human civilization. There is a growing demand in the present world for plant based medicines, health products, pharmaceuticals, food supplements, cosmetics etc. Pain is a discomfort and its relief must be tackled. Currently available synthetic pain killers possess many known adverse and toxic effects but those do not appear in the treatment with natural products. Again various forms of cancers are rising all over the world, requiring newer therapy with minimum toxicity. So the quest of analgesics and anticancer drugs from natural sources is the demand of time. Therefore, in the present study, three medicinal plants of Bangladesh namely A. squamosa, C. procera and P. betel were chosen and crude ethanolic extracts of their leaves were prepared and investigated for possible in vivo analgesic and cytotoxic properties. The extracts produced significant writhing inhibition in acetic acid induced writhing in mice at the oral doses of 250 mg/kg and 500 mg/kg body wt. (p < 0.001) and their effects were comparable to that of the standard drug diclofenac sodium at the dose of 25 mg/kg body weight. The crude extracts also produced prominent cytotoxic activities in brine shrimp (Artemia salina).