Anti –Inflammatory Effect of Methanolic and Aqueous Extracts of Urtica pilulifera L. Seed in Rats

Abstract

Wide range of acute and chronic inflammatory ailments, side effects of their available therapies and incomplete treatment of such patients push the researches to find new and more effective drugs. To reach this aim, in the current study, we evaluate Urtica pilulifera L. (family Urticaceae) as an introduced traditional herb for treatment of inflammation in Persian Medicine (PM). In an animal study, Anti – inflammatory effects of U. pilulifera were surveyed in rats on the basis hind paw edema model which it’s inflammation induced with formalin. Sodium Salicylate (300mg/kg, ip, S.S) injection was used as a positive control group and compared with methanolic extract of U. pilulifera (20 mg/kg; i.p.) (MUP), three different doses of aqueous extract of U. pilulifera (20, 40 and 80 mg/kg; i.p.) (AUP) and a group of distilled water (6 mL/kg ; i.p.). As acute anti-inflammatory effect, AUP in doses 40 and 80mg/kg (i.p.) decreased edema significantly (p<0.05). In chronic anti- inflammatory response, results indicate that all AUP groups had anti- inflammatory effects (p <0.05) with no significant difference by the S.S group. In conclusion, AUP had anti-inflammatory effects on both acute and chronic edema while MUP was just effective in chronic anti-inflammatory studies.

Keywords

• Urtica Pilulifera
• Inflammation
• Rat
• Persian medicine