Analgesic Properties of &amp;lt;i&amp;gt;Euphorbia prostrate&amp;lt;/i&amp;gt; Crude Extracts

Biwott T

doi:10.11648/j.sjc.20150306.14

Abstract

Pain is a symptom that results from particular physiological processes as injurious stimuli characteristic of cell injury or disease. The use of plants as medicine for relieving pain has been reported in several studies where extracts have shown significant analgesic activity. This study was conducted to determine the analgesic efficacy of ethyl acetate and hexane crude extract from Euphorbia prostrate. The phytochemical screening of hexane and ethyl acetate was done. The study also evaluated the analgesic properties of hexane and ethyl acetate crude extracts from E. prostrate. Tail Immersion Model with albino rats was adopted for the investigation. Crude extracts at doses of 250, 500 and 1000mg/kg body weight were administered orally and their activity compared with diclofenac (positive control) and tween solution (negative control). Phytochemical screening showed that major phytochemical in E. prostrate plant had mid polar properties. Results for both the hexane and ethyl acetate crude extracts showed a significant increase in Pain Reaction Time (PRT) at the dose level of 1000 mg/kg. These results were statistically authentic as realized from minimal standard deviation of 0.158 and 0.058 for diclofenac and ethyl acetate extract respectively with a t-test value of 24.99at α = 0.005 level of significance. This confirmed the efficacy of both hexane and ethyl acetate extracts therefore inference that E. prostrate exhibits analgesic activity and is a potential lead candidate for drug discovery.

Highlights

Plants have been used to treat diseases since time in memorial [16]
After serial extraction of hexane and ethyl acetate respectively, the % yield of the extracts showed that ethyl acetate was higher compared to hexane extract as shown in Table 1.The present phytochemical screening of hexane and ethyl acetate crude extracts indicated that the plant extract obtained in ethyl acetate has more compounds compared to hexane extract
The analgesic bioactive components in E. prostrata could be of mid polarity

Summary

Introduction

Plants have been used to treat diseases since time in memorial [16]. The oldest recorded evidence of medicinal plants’ use for preparation of drugs was found on a Sumerian clay slab from Nagpur, approximately 5000 years old [15, 19]. According to World Health Organization (WHO), 80% of people in the world currently rely on herbs as their primary source of healthcare and to generate income and livelihood improvement [29]. This is because herbs are considered to be accessible, safer and affordable compared to Gilani the synthesized products which are regarded to have adverse side effects to humans, environment and are believed to be safe to handle [12] [21]. Apart from being a start-up in drug discovery, medicinal plants have found use in folk medicine to treat diseases and as a source of income [4]

Results

Discussion

Conclusion