Research Paper
Antidiarrheal and antioxidant activities of chamomile (Matricaria recutita L.) decoction extract in rats

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2014.01.015Get rights and content

Abstract

Ethnopharmacological relevance

Matricaria recutita L. (Chamomile) has been widely used in the Tunisian traditional medicine for the treatment of digestive system disorders. The present work aims to investigate the protective effects of chamomile decoction extract (CDE) against castor oil-induced diarrhea and oxidative stress in rats.

Methods

The antidiarrheal activity was evaluated using castor oil-induced diarrhea method. In this respect, rats were divided into six groups: Control, Castor oil, Castor oil+Loperamide (LOP) and Castor oil+various doses of CDE. Animals were per orally (p.o.) pre-treated with CDE during 1 h and intoxicated for 2 or 4 h by acute oral administration of castor oil.

Results

Our results showed that CDE produced a significant dose-dependent protection against castor oil-induced diarrhea and intestinal fluid accumulation. On the other hand, we showed that diarrhea was accompagned by an oxidative stress status assessed by an increase of malondialdehyde (MDA) level and depletion of antioxidant enzyme activities as superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx). Castor oil also increased gastric and intestinal mucosa hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and free iron levels. Importantly, we showed that chamomile pre-treatment abrogated all these biochemical alterations.

Conclusion

These findings suggested that chamomile extract had a potent antidiarrheal and antioxidant properties in rats confirming their use in traditional medicine.

Introduction

Diarrhea is a major health problem, especially for children under the age of 5 years in developing countries including Tunisia (Bryce et al., 2005). This disease is responsible for about 5 million deaths annually (Heinrich et al., 2005). Diarrhea is characterized by a discharge of semisolid or watery fecal matter from the bowel three or more times in one day (Suleiman et al., 2008) leading to inflammatory response and oxidative stress (Song et al., 2011). To protect against this disease, commercial drugs such as diaretyl are frequently used. This drug induces a severe constipation as a side effect and can also lead to colorectal cancer (Power et al., 2013). For this reason, the World Health Organization (WHO) has introduced a program for diarrheal control which involves the use of traditional herbal medicines. However, several naturally-occurring compounds are largely used to protect against digestive system diseases both in experimental and clinical situations.

Matricaria recutita L. (Chamomile) is a well-known medicinal plant species from Asteraceae family. This species is one of the most popular and widely used in traditional medicine for the treatment of gastrointestinal disorders including diarrhea (Alanís et al., 2005). However, due to its richness in therapeutically active compounds (McKay and Blumberg, 2006), this plant presents many beneficial health effects as antioxidant (Hernández-Ceruelos et al., 2010), neuro-protective (Ranpariya et al., 2011), anti-allergic (Chandrashekhar et al., 2011), anti-inflammatory (Bulgari et al., 2012), anti-microbial (Silva et al., 2012) and anticancer (Matić et al., 2013) activities. Chamomile is also used for its positive effects against digestive system illness (Al-Hashem, 2010).

Hence, the present study aimed to investigate the putative protective effect of CDE on diarrhea induced by castor oil administration as well as the implication of oxidative stress in such protection.

Section snippets

Chemicals

Epinephrine, bovine catalase, 2-Thio-barbituric acid (TBA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) were from Sigma chemicals Co. (Germany). All other chemicals used were of analytical grade.

Preparation of chamomile decoction extract

Chamomile (Matricaria recutita L.) flowers were cultivated from the region of Beja (North-West of Tunisia) during March 2012 and identified by Mrs. Mouhiba Ben-Naceur, professor of taxonomy in the Higher Institute of Biotechnology of Béja-Tunisia. The Voucher specimens (No. M121) have been deposited with the

Acute oral toxicity of CDE

In the acute oral toxicity study, neither abnormal behavior nor mortality was detected during the observation period. The LD50 value was greater than 3200 mg/kg b.w. for the decoction extract of Matricaria recutita.

Effects of CDE on castor oil-induced diarrhea

We firstly demonstrated in the present study that, 4 h after castor oil (5 ml/kg, b.w., p.o.) administration, all rats produced copious diarrhea (Table 1). However, pre-treatment with various doses of CDE (25, 50 and 100 mg/kg, b.w., p.o.) significantly and dose-dependently reduced the

Discussion

In the present study, we evaluated the protective effects of chamomile decoction extract against castor oil-induced diarrhea in adult healthy rats as well as the implication of oxidative stress in such a protection.

We firstly showed that the LD50 value was greater than 3200 mg/kg b.w. for the CDE. However, neither mortality nor behavior impairment were noted during the observation period. Chamomile methanol extract, has also been shown to have any evidence of toxicity (Chandrashekhar et al., 2011

Conclusion

In conclusion, our data clearly demonstrated the protective effects of CDE against castor oil-induced diarrhea and fluid accumulation in rats as well as the implication of oxidative stress and Fenton pathway in such protection. These findings confirmed the basis for the use of chamomile extracts in traditional medicine for the treatment and/or management of digestive system disorders as diarrhea.

Acknowledgments

Financial support of the Tunisian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research is gratefully acknowledged. Financial disclosures: none declared.

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