Acute and sub-chronic oral toxicity studies of the extracts from herbs in Phikud Navakot

Abstract

This study presents data from oral acute and sub-chronic (90-day) toxicity effect of the extracts from herbs in Phikud Navakot (PN) which is commonly used in Thai traditional medicine for alleviation of the clinical sign of hyperlipidemia, cardiovascular diseases, and cerebrovascular diseases. The single and repeated dose of the extracts were administered to Sprague Dawley rats as described in the OECD code 420 guideline for acute test and OECD code 408 guideline for sub-chronic test respectively. The variables included were body weights; feed consumption, organ weights, hematology and blood clinical chemistry, and histopathology were performed. Acute toxicity test revealed that, the limit dose of 2,000 mg/kg did not cause any mortality or symptoms of toxicity in all rats during the observation period. In the sub-chronic tests, the results did not show any treatment–related effect of toxicity. Therefore, our obtained results suggest that PN is a relatively nontoxic herb for single and repeated oral administration. However, the contraindication of the usage of PN is related to the high levels of uric acid during and after a high dose oral administration.

Keywords: Phikud Navakot, oral, acute and sub-chronic toxicity, Sprague Dawley rat