Biochemical Toxicology Of Desmodium Adscendens

Aqueous crude extract of Desmodium adscendens, as dispensed at the Centre for Scientific Research into Plant Medicine (CSRPM), was freeze-dried into a powder and used in this study to evaluate its toxicological effects in rats. For acute toxicity studies, high doses of the freeze-dried extract, were administered orally as single doses to rats, and the behaviours of the animals and organ toxicity were noted. Low, medium and high doses of the plant extract, representing 3, 10, and 30% of the dose that caused 50% lethality over the period of observation were administered to another group of rats in subchronic toxicity studies, and certain biochemical parameters measured as indices of liver and kidney toxicity. In order to investigate possible drug-drug interaction with other drugs, the effects of the plant material on zoxazolamine paralysis time, thiopentone sleeping time and the induction/inhibition of isozymes of the cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzyme systems were studied. From the results of the acute toxicity studies, the dose of the plant extract that caused 50% lethality was estimated to be 1125mg/kg body weight and this is about 456 times the prescribed dose in humans. When the extract was chronically administered, no significant differences were observed in levels of y-glutamyltransferase activity, total protein, total bilirubin, creatinine and blood urea nitrogen concentrations in sera of test and control animals, irrespective of the doses of the extract administered.