Vol. 8, Issue 8 (2019)

Author(s):
Ranajit Kumar Khalua, Rita Mondal and Souvik Tewari

Abstract:
Inflammation is a defensive reaction of the body against infections and injuries. Acute inflammation can be conventionally described as a vascular and cellular event. Chronic inflammation causes tissue destruction brought by activated macrophages by release of variety of biological active substances. Inflammation plays a major role in most chronic illnesses, including neurodegenerative, cardiovascular, pulmonary, metabolic, autoimmune and neoplastic diseases. Herbal medicines derived from plant extracts are being increasingly utilized to treat a wide variety of clinical disease, though relatively little knowledge about their mode of action is available. There is a growing interest in pharmacological evaluation of various plants used in Indian traditional system of medicine. Carrageenan, from the Irish word “carraigin” meaning Irish moss, refers not only to a species of red alga chondrus crisous found along rocky areas of the Atlantic coast of the British Isles, Europe, and North America, but also refers to its mucopolysaccharides extracts, discovered by the British pharmacist Stanford in 1862. In the present study, the anti-inflammatory activities of three Indian medicinal plants were investigated with reference to standard drugs indomethacin. Both the aqueous and ethanolic extract significantly reduced carrageenan induced acute inflammation in animal models. The ethanolic extracts were more potent than the aqueous extracts. Of the three plants Swietenia macrophylla (both aqueous and ethanolic extracts) showed maximum protection followed by Swertia chirata. Although active inflammatory compound have already been reported from these plants, the study emphasizes on the comparative assessment of anti-inflammatory activities of these three plants with reference to standard drug indomethacin.