Laxative and antimicrobial activities of ethanolic extract of leaf and roots from Amaranthus viridis L. on wistar albino rats

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the laxative and antimicrobial activities of ethanol extracts of leaf and root of Amaranthus viridis L. The laxative activity of ethanolic leaf extract of A. viridis was studied using six groups of wistar albino rats; Group I which served as the negative control received 0.5ml/kg of normal saline, Group II received 10mg/kg of Dulcolax and the rest of the groups (III-VI) received 400, 200, 100 and 50mg/kg of the extract respectively. The laxative activity of the ethanolic leaf extract was expressed as the mean of total weight of faecal output in each group. A significant (p<0.05) dose dependent increase in the faecal output was observed at the 200mg/kg (3.00 ±1.41gm) and 400mg/kg (3.50 ±2.12gm) doses compared with the negative control. The antimicrobial activity was expressed as the diameter of the zone of inhibition hence the minimum inhibitory concentrations were determined. The antimicrobial activity of the A. viridis leaf and root extracts had dose dependent increases in all the tested organisms from their various minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC). The result confirmed that the leaves and root of A. viridis possess laxative and antimicrobial activity.