Abstract
Zingiber officinale has been used in herbal medicine for the treatment of inflammation. This claim however, need to be validated, hence this present study.
The study was aimed at evaluating the acute and sub-acute anti-inflammatory activity of the stem bark extract of Zingiber officinale. This was done by the oral administration of different doses of the extract (150 and 300 mg/kg) on different experimental anti-inflammatory models including; Carrageenan-induced paw edema, Dextran-induced paw edema and Formaldehyde-induced paw edema model in albino rats. Indomethacin (10 mg/kg) and distilled water (2 ml/kg) were used as the positive and negative controls respectively. All administrations were done orally using an oro-gastric tube and animals were divided into 5groups of 4 each.
The Lorke’s model involving two phases were used to analyze the extract acute toxicities at 10, 100 and 1000 mg/kg oral doses for the first phase and 1600, 2900 and 5000 mg/kg oral doses for the second phase. Wister rats (n = 3) were used for the first phase and n =1 for the second phase.
The results showed that aqueous extract of Zingiber officinale at doses 150 and 300 mg/kg produced significant (p<0.05) anti-inflammatory properties in the acute inflammatory models (Carrageenan and Dextran -induced paw edema, formaldehyde induced paw edema) in rat when compared with the control.
The oral acute toxicity study revealed a wide margin of safety of Zingiber officinale as there was neither mortality nor signs of toxicity in both phases of the acute toxicity study.
This result therefore supports the claim of the ethno medical use of the aqueous extract of Zingiber officinale in the treatment of inflammatory conditions.
Further work should be directed at isolating and characterizing the pharmacologically active constituents of the Zingiber officinale for a detailed elucidation of its anti-inflammatory properties.
