A comparative study of the beneficial effects of Osbeckia octandra and Osbeckia aspera in liver dysfunction in rats

Abstract

A study was conducted to compare the protec­ tive effects of aqueous extracts of Osbeckia octandra and Osbeckia aspera against carbon tetrachloride (CC1 4)-mediated liver damage in Sprague Dawley rats by assessing their ability to protect livers against the toxin-mediated alterations in the liver histopathology and the serum levels of alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotrans­ ferase (AST) and alkaline phosphatase. Within 24 h of administering a sub-lethal dose (0.2 ml/100 g, i.p.) of CC1 4 to rats, the" ALT, AST and alkaline phosphatase activities were found to be 380.8%, 101.4% and 222.2% higher respectively, than the corresponding base values in control animals untreated with the toxin. By pre-treatment of rats for 7 days with an aqueous extract of either the O.octandra or O.aspera, the CCl 4-mediated changes in the serum enzyme activities could be considerably reduced. Thus, in rats pre-treated with an extract of O.octandra or 0.aspera, the CC1 4 was able to cause only a 33.7% or 27.6% increase in ALT activity, a 9.2% or 4.2% increase in AST activity and a 16.6% or 17.6 % increase in alkaline phosphatase activity respectively, above the cor­ responding values in control animals. In post-treatment experiments also when serum ,enzyme levels in rats treated only with CC1 4 and-left to recover for 4 days were compared with those in rats treated orally for 3 days with either plant extract starting 24 h after the toxin admin­ istration, it was_found that both plant extracts were able to protect the livers against the toxin mediated changes, to a similar extent. Thus, on the 4' h day after CC1 4 treatment, the serum ALT, AST and alkaline phosphatase activities were still 162%, 76.5% and 90.1% respectively, higher than the corresponding values in control animals. In-the O.octandra and O.aspera post-treated groups, the corresponding increases in the activities of ALT, AST and alkaline phosphatase respectively, were only 53.8% and 35.5% for ALT, 39.2% and 41.6% for AST and 29% and 18.6% for alkaline phosphatase. In both the pre-treatment and the post-treatment experiments it was also observed that, the CC1 4-mediated alterations in liver histo­ pathology could be prevented to a similar extent by both plant extracts. The overall results indi­ cate that aqueous extracts of the leaves of both O.octandra and O.aspera possess very similar hepatoprotective abilities, thus rationalizing the use of both these plants in traditional medicine for the treatment of liver disease.