Rosmarinus officinalis leaves water extract. (c2007)

Abstract

Nowadays, herbal medicine is becoming a very popular complementary therapy based on its relative safety, effectiveness, accessibility and inexpensiveness. The present study investigates the potential role of Rosmarinus officinalis leaves water extract in lipemia, glycemia, ulcer and inflammation. The antibacterial activity was also assessed on several hospital isolates. After one month of water extract intake via drinking water (200, 500 and 1000 mg/Kg body weight) the blood lipid profile and liver function of rats used during the experiment were not affected. However, the water extract (200 and 1000 mg/kg body weight) showed significant hypoglycemic and insulin-release inhibitory effects since both glucose and insulin concentrations were significantly reduced. The water extract of Rosmarinus officinalis at doses 50, 100, 250 and 500 mg/kg body weight was also studied in the rat using both acute and chronic inflammation models induced by carrageenan and formalin respectively. All dose used showed anti-inflammatory activity with significance reached at doses ≥100 mg/kg body weight in both models. The optimum dose in the acute and chronic inflammation models were 250 and 500 mg/kg body weight respectively. The anti-inflammatory effect observed was comparable to that caused by diclofenac, the control drug, in both models. Similar doses to the inflammation study were also used in the detection of anti-ulcerogenic potential of the extract. A dose dependent protection against ethanolinduced gastric ulcer was observed. However, protection became significant when rats received doses 2: 250 mglkg body weight. The 500 mg dose exhibited a protection that slightly exceeded that of the reference drug cimetril. The antibacterial effect of the water extract against 11 hospital bacterial isolates was investigated using disc diffusion technique (using a serial dilution: 200, 100, 50, 20 and 10 µg extract) and did not show any potentials in this respect. In conclusion, the water extract of R. officinalis dry leaves at the doses used has no toxic signs and symptoms and it exhibits a positive effect on ulcer, inflammation and hyperglycemia, however the extract appeared to have a neutral effect upon lipemia.