Ulcer is a very common disease that affects millions of people in all parts of the world. Throughout the world, the mortality rate directly due to gastric ulcer varies widely. In the United States, about four million people have active peptic ulcers and about 350,000 new cases are diagnosed each year.
The medical treatment of this disease is intended to relieve pain, accelerate healing of the ulcer creator, and prevent complications and recurrences. For these antacids, cimetidine, ranitidine, famotidine, anticholinergics, sucralfate, prostaglandins, omeprazole etc are used. However, all these synthetic drugs result in a number of side effects, which sometimes become unbearable for the patient.
The “Green Wave” triggered by a growing ecological awareness has resulted in an increased interest in herbal formulations throughout the world, particularly in the last decade. The efficacy of a number of herbal formulations has been tested by valid phytopharmaceutical techniques and the number of plant-based drugs or health foods has increased steadily.
A study was conducted to develop low cost anti-ulcer herbal drug from an indigenous plant Glycyrrhiza glabra, locally called mulethi.
G glabra, belonging to the family Febaceae, is also known as licorice. The medicinal use of licorice in both western and eastern cultures dates back several thousand years. Its traditional use includes the treatment of peptic ulcers, asthma, pharyngitis and abdominal pain. Licorice is known to exhibit many pharmacological actions including anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, hepatoprotective, expectorant andantitussive activities. Although much of the pharmacology focuses on glycyrrhizin and glycyrrhitinic acid, licorice have many other components, such as flavonoids, that may have significant pharmacological effect. The flavonoids have been reported to possess both anti-inflammatory and anti-ulcer effects. The roots of the plant were purchased from a local market and evaluated toxicologically and pharmacologically for its anti-ulcer properties.
During pharmacological studies, first, the acute oral toxicity test was performed to evaluate the safe dose of the test drug. The result indicated that the extract of G glabra is safe up to a dose of 2.5g.
Secondly, ulcer was developed in experimental animals and then treated with the test and standard drugs to find out ulcer healing effects.
The anti-ulcerogenic properties of G glabra were thoroughly searched and compared with the standard anti-ulcer drug cimetidine. The comparison showed that G glabra possesses a very significant anti-ulcerogenic activity i.e. 77.7 percent after 15 days and 90 percent after 30 days of therapy. The results suggested that G glabra meets the standard and could be a good source of alternative medicine for ulcer therapy.
Extract from the research paper ‘Anti-ulcerogenic and Toxicological Studies of Glycyrrhiza glabra Roots Available in the Local Market of Karachi’ authored by Nudrat Fatima, Mansoor Ahmad, Shazia Syed, Hina Imran and Zahra Yaqeen, published in the Karachi University Journal of Science, 2008
