The analgesic effect of Carum copticum extract and morphine on phasic pain in mice
Introduction
Carum copticum (L.) Sprague ex Turrill is a plant in the Umbelliferae family and constituents of it's seed are: an aromatic volatile essential oil, and a crystalline substance stearoptene. The stearoptene is known as ajowan-ka-phul (crude thymol) (Asghari and Lockwood, 1996, Farooq, 1953, Lockwood, 2002, Nadkarni, 1976). A phenolic glucoside has been isolated from the seeds and identified as 2-methyl-3- glucosyloxy-5-isopropylphenol (Garg, 1980). Thymol crystallizes easily from the oil extracted from seeds of Carum copticum and the remainder consists of p-cymene, b-pinene, dipentene β-terpinene and carvacrol (Chopra, 1982). This plant has been mentioned in Iranian traditional literature to have therapeutic effect on flatulence, indigestion, colic, dyspepsia and diarrhea (Astarabadi, 1966, Nadkarni, 1976, Avesina, 1985). It is also applied to eradicate worms and to relieve urticaria, rheumatic and neuralgic pain such as joint pains and headache (Garg, 1980). Although there are a few scientific reports about antibacterial, antihelmentic, antiflatulent and antidiarrheal effects of this plant (Ashebir and Ashenafi, 1999, Fisseha et al., 1999, Rani and Khullar, 2004, Singh et al., 2002). We did not find any scientific reports to prove its effects on pain. So, we conducted an experimental clinical trial to assess and compare the analgesic effect of ethanolic extract of Carum copticum fruit with different doses of morphine sulphate in a model of phasic pain in mice.
Section snippets
Materials and methods
In this study, the stimulus for pain induction was a heat stimulus produced by a light beam, applied to the tail of the animals by using an Analgesiometer, type 812 (Hugo Sachs Electronik, Germany). For behavioral testing permission of the animal ethics committee of Shahid Sadughi Medical University (Yazd, Iran), in accordance with the internationally accepted principles for laboratory animal use and care mentioned by the European Community guidelines, were obtained. The animals used in this
Results
In the present study, tail-flick latency was recorded before (as base line latency) and every 15 min after drug administration (as test latency) for 2 h. Data were expressed as mean ± S.E.M. for the percentage of analgesia index (AI %) of each response, calculated with the method indicated by D’Amour and Smith (1941) [AI% = (test latency − base line latency/base line latency − cut-off) × 100]. The data obtained from all groups throughout 2 h post-drug administration are illustrated in Fig. 1. These results
Discussion
Thymol is the major component of Carum copticum (Gersbach and Reddy, 2002), which is known as an antiparasitic agent (Fisseha et al., 1999, Garg, 1980). It has been mentioned that the healer of Mudpar village use special herbal combination including Carum copticum for treatment of patients suffering from gout (Patnaik, 1993). It is also applied to eradicate worms and to relieve urticaria, rheumatic and neuralgic pain such as joint pains and headache (Kloos et al., 1978). There is a report
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the vice chancellor research of Shahid Sadughi Medical University for funding this project. We would also like to thank A.S. Salami for assisting the experimental procedure.
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