IN VIVO EVALUATION OF ANTIDIARRHEAL ACTIVITY AND FORMULATION OF A FLOUR BASED ON EXTRACTS FROM THE LEAVES OF COMBRETUM GRANDIFLORUM G. DON (COMBRETACEAE)

Abstract

Althoughmany conventional antidiarrheal agents are available, the inherenttoxicityof thesedrugsprovides an avenue to explore for safe and effective alternative medications. The objective of thisstudyis to evaluate in vivo the antidiarrhealactivity of extractsfrom the leaves of Combretumgrandiflorum and to formulate an antidiarrhealflour.The antidiarrhealactivity of Combretumgrandiflorumextractswascarried out usingmodels of castor oil-induceddiarrhea, castor oil-induced anti-enteropolling and intestinal transit. The formulation of the antidiarrhealflourwas made following the classic CCC calculationmethod. The results show a significantreduction (p˂0.01) in the frequency of wetstools and water content of diarrhea, intestinal motility, intestinal fluid accumulation and a delay in the onset of diarrhea by compared to controls, wereobserved in micetreatedwith the aqueousextract of Combretumgrandiflorum. Furthermore, the test batchestreatedwith the hydroethanolicextract and the referencemolecule (loperamide), no emission of diarrhealstools, no mass of freshdiarrhealstools, wasobserved. However, thiseffect of loperamideisstatisticallyidentical to that of the hydroethanolicextract. The formulation of antidiarrhealflourwith the hydroethanolicextract of Combretumgrandiflorumwillprovide an antidiarrhealfoodwith good nutritional value and acceptable rheologicalproperties. Additionalresearchisthereforenecessary to findflours to resolvediarrheaproblems.