Evaluation of a Commercially Available Herbal Gel Containing Acacia Arabica in Chronic Generalized Gingivitis Patients

Background : The use of herbal drugs for the prevention and treatment of various health ailments has been in practice from the time immemorial. Acacia arabica is considered as an astringent, demulcent, aphrodisiac, antihelminthic, antimicrobial, antidiarrhoeal with good nutritional value in Indian traditional medicine system. This study was done to evaluate the efficacy of a commercially available gel containing Acacia Arabica in reducing the gingival inflammation in chronic generalized gingivitis patients. Materials and Method: The study included 15 subjects diagnosed with chronic generalized gingivitis. They were asked to apply the Acacia Arabica gel for 1 week before undergoing mechanical therapy. The clinical parameters such as the Gingival Index (GI) and the Plaque Index were taken at baseline and one week after application of the gel. Results: The clinical parameters were compared using the Paired sample t- test and the commercially available gel containing Acacia Arabica was found to be effective in reducing inflammation in patients with chronic generalized gingivitis. The gingival index score reduced from 1.94 ± 0.234 at baseline to 1.22 ± 0.196 after one week whereas the plaque score reduced from 3.82 ± 0.524 at baseline to 2.86 ± 0.520 after one week. Conclusion: Herbal gel containing Acacia Arabica has proven to be useful in reducing the inflammation as well as an anti-plaque agent

Assessment of luteolin isolated from Eclipta alba leaves in animal models of epilepsy

Context: Eclipta alba (Linn) Hassk. (Asteraceae) has been reported to be a nerve tonic and has been used to treat epilepsy in folk medicine. Objective: The present study isolates and characterizes luteolin from E. alba and evaluates its antiepileptic potential in chemically induced acute and chronic models in mice. Materials and methods: The methanol extract (16.85% w/w) of E. alba leaves was subjected to fractionation for isolation of luteolin. In acute pentylenetetrazole (PTZ) model, luteolin (5, 10, 20 mg/kg, i.p.) was administered 30 min prior to PTZ injection (100 mg/kg) in Swiss albino mice. Kindling was induced by chronic administration of PTZ (35 mg/kg) on every alternate day (48 days). Luteolin was investigated on the course of kindling development and oxidative stress markers [reduced glutathione (GSH) and malondialdehyde (MDA)] in kindled mice. Results: Single-dose pretreatment with luteolin (10 and 20 mg/kg, i.p.) was found to be effective in an acute PTZ model (100% protection from mortality) and it did not exhibit any effect on motor coordination at the same doses. PTZ-induced kindling was significantly (p < 0.001) prevented by luteolin (5, 10, 20 mg/kg, i.p.) in a dose-dependent manner. Luteolin restored levels of reduced GSH (p < 0.001) and decreased the level of MDA (p < 0.001), a marker of lipid peroxidation. Discussion and conclusion: The results of the present study demonstrated that luteolin had an anticonvulsant effect in an acute PTZ model. Luteolin exhibited and inhibitory effect on the course of kindling and associated oxidative stress and hence could be a potential molecule in the treatment of epilepsy

Chronic exposure to chewing tobacco selects for overexpression of stearoyl-CoA desaturase in normal oral keratinocytes

Chewing tobacco is a common practice in certain socio-economic sections of southern Asia, particularly in the Indian subcontinent and has been well associated with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. The molecular mechanisms of chewing tobacco which leads to malignancy remains unclear. In large majority of studies, short-term exposure to tobacco has been evaluated. From a biological perspective, however, long-term (chronic) exposure to tobacco mimics the pathogenesis of oral cancer more closely. We developed a cell line model to investigate the chronic effects of chewing tobacco. Chronic exposure to tobacco resulted in higher cellular proliferation and invasive ability of the normal oral keratinocytes (OKF6/TERT1). We carried out quantitative proteomic analysis of OKF6/TERT1 cells chronically treated with chewing tobacco compared to the untreated cells. We identified a total of 3,636 proteins among which expression of 408 proteins were found to be significantly altered. Among the overexpressed proteins, stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD) was found to be 2.6-fold overexpressed in the tobacco treated cells. Silencing/inhibition of SCD using its specific siRNA or inhibitor led to a decrease in cellular proliferation, invasion and colony forming ability of not only the tobacco treated cells but also in a panel of head and neck cancer cell lines. These findings suggest that chronic exposure to chewing tobacco induced carcinogenesis in non-malignant oral epithelial cells and SCD plays an essential role in this process. The current study provides evidence that SCD can act as a potential therapeutic target in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, especially in patients who are users of tobacco