ABSTRACT:
Medicinal plants are important elements of indigenous medical system. Achyranthes aspera (family Amaranthaceae) is a plant with enormous medicinal values. The root, leaf, stem of this plant is traditionally used by the folks for treatment of a large number of diseases in different parts of the world. The aqueous extract and the methanol extract of the root contain alkaloid, steroid, terpenoid, flavonoid, saponin and reducing sugars. The toxicity studies showed the methanolic extracts are safe up to the concentration of 400 mg/mL. Both the extracts at a dose of 100 mg/mL showed significant reduction in body temperature in yeast induced pyrexia and marked reduction in plasma glucose level when tested on Wister albino rats. At the same dose level the extracts also showed significant anti-inflammatory activity on carrageenan and dextran induced rat paw edema. The methanol extract when tested against 12 different bacterial strains ( including both gram negative and gram positive bacteria), it gave MIC values at 1.2 mg/mL and 1.6 mg/mL for Shigella dysenteriae 6 and Shigella dysenteriae 8 respectively where other bacterial strains were resistant to the extract. All the results support the traditional claim of the effectiveness of this medicinal herb in different ailments, infections, pyrexia, diabetes and other diseases.