A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY ON THE ANTI-INFLAMMATORY EFFECT OF BANABA LEAVES (LAGERSTROEMIA SPECIOSA) ON MALE ALBINO RATS (RATTUS NORVEIGECUS)

ABSTRACT: Inflammation is a complex reaction in the vascularized connective tissue. It serves to destroy, dilute or wall off the injurious agent, but it is, in turn sets into motion a series of events that, as far as possible, heal and reconstitute the damaged tissue. It is fundamentally a protective response, the ultimate goal of which is to protect the organism against the initial cause of cell injury (e.g. microbes, toxins) and the consequences of such injury (e.g. necrotte cells and tissues). Inflammation maybe observed by the characteristic edema and erythema. These indicates protein denaturation and erythrocyte hemolysis. In the experiment, 0.05 ml caragenan (1%) was injected in the footpad of male albino rats induce inflammation. The subsequent in size of the footpad was measured serially every hour for three hours using an imptovised plethysmometer. The amount of water displaced is equivalent to the degree of inflammation. Banana extract (5mg/ml) was injected to the experimental rats where its anti-inflammatory effect were determined statistically using 1-tailed classification following t-test. P-value of 0.05 where critical region +>1.96 was determined. Results proved that both on the first and second hour, the test were statistically non-significant.

Department of Pharmacology