Efficacy and Safety of some Medical Herbs on Gastric Ulcer Induced by Aspirin in Rats

Abstract

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are commonly used drugs in inflammation treatment. NSAIDs are associated with several side effects especially on the stomach. Considering these limitations of NSAIDs side effect, alternate natural nontoxic antioxidant with potent antiulcer activity such as ginger or curcumin was needed. Thus, this study was conducted to evaluate the correction role of ranitidine alone or with ginger or/and curcumin on aspirin induced gastric ulcer in adult male albino rats. Gastric ulcer in rats was induced by administered aspirin (500mg/Kg body weight/day) for three successive days to the animals. The obtained data revealed that aspirin induced a significant (p<0.05) increase in macroscopic ulcer score, gastric acidity and gastric production of mucosal non-protein sulfhrydryl group than those in control ones. The levels of proinflammatory cytokines (TNF-α, IL-1β & IL-8) were significantly (p<0.05) increase associated with remarkable elevation in the levels of total oxidant capacity and malondialdehyde (MDA) in ulcergenic rats. On the other hand, aspirin caused significant (p<0.05) decrease in the gastric total anti-oxidant capacity, prostaglandine E2, cyclooxygenase and vascular endothelial cell growth factor (VEGF) levels as compared to control rats. These disturbances in all the pervious parameters were ameliorated after the ulcerogenic rats treated with ginger, curcumin or their mixture accompanied with ranitidine treatment dependent on the time of administration (1&2 weeks). These findings are consistent with the concept that curcumin and ginger are antioxidant agents. The underlying mechanisms of these effects were discussed with available recent researches.