Bangladesh possesses a rich flora of medicinal plants, especially edible plants which are used as vegetables. Edible plants can play a great role as nutraceutical. Bangladeshi nutraceuticals are currently receiving recognition worldwide as being beneficial in various diseases. Thus, the interest of this project was to investigate the nutraceutical stuff Pteris vittata L. providing pharmacological benefits in addition to its basic nutritional values for possible analgesic & anti-oxidant activity. Phytochemical evaluation of the ethanolic extracts of Pteris vittata L. indicates the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, tannins, gums, carbohydrates and absence of steroids, saponins. The pharmacological interests of these compounds, coupled with the use of this plant in traditional medicine tend to investigate Pteris vittata L. for possible analgesic, anti-oxidant activities. An analgesic activity was investigated on animal model, Swiss Albino mice. Ethanolic extracts of Pteris vittata L. produced 79.55% protection or writhing inhibition in mice at oral doses of 500 mg/kg body weight and 57.95% at 250mg/kg body weight of mice respectively. Ethanolic extract showed anti-oxidant activity in vitro when tested in DPPH scavenging method. The IC50 (inhibitory conc. 50%) for ascorbic acid was approximately 12.76µg/ml and for the sample it is more than60.11µg/ml. The above results indicated that the ethanolic extract of the edible plant, Pteris vittata L.has potent analgesic and anti-oxidant effect & may be used as nutraceutical. However,further investigations are necessary to find out the active constituents responsible for this effect.
Keywords: Pteris vittat L., Analgesic activity, Antioxidant activity, Phytochemical test, Writhing reflex.
28-Feb-2025
