Haematopoietic effect of an ethanolic leaf extract of Ipomoea in- volucrata P. Beauv in phlebotomized New Zealand White Rabbits

Abstract

Ipomoea involucrata is used by some religious bodies (that do not believe in the use of allopathic medicine) in Ghana to treat haematological conditions particularly anaemia. The aim of this study therefore is to determine the haematopoietic effect of the ethanolic leaf extract of Ipomoea involucrata to establish the scientific bases for its use. The haematological profile of healthy New Zealand rabbits, phlebotomized rabbits, and phlebotomized rabbits treated with 0.23 ml/kg Feroglobin®, 100, 300, and 1000 mg/kg I. involucrata ethanolic leaf extract, or 0.23 ml normal saline were determined at 20-day intervals for 40 days using the Cell Dyn 1800 Automatic Analyzer®. Data obtained was analyzed using GraphPad Prism version 5. The 300 and 1000 mg/kg dose of the extract and the reference hematinic caused significant increments (P ≤ 0.01 -0.001) in white blood cells, red blood cells, haemoglobin concentration, hematocrit, and platelets counts within 20 days of treatment. The mean corpuscular volume, mean corpuscular haemoglobin, and mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration, and the red cell distribution width recorded in all categories were not significantly different. This indicates that the ethanolic leaf extract of Ipomoea involucrata has some haematopoietic activity and thus could be effective in managing anaemia and other blood cell deficiency disorders. Journal of Medical and Biomedical Sciences (2012) 1(2), 10-16