Metals in herbal formulations

Traditional medicine has historical, cultural, religious and social bases. It has been accepted and endorsed as a means of health complications from ancient time. The approach and application could have differences based on different types of traditional medicines but one thing is common is that it carries the cultural social identity of the civilization. As the time passes and urbanization and mordenisation is excelling for last few decades it \"'as expected that the dependency will become more on modern conventional therapy. But surprisingly the trend 0 consumption of traditional medicine has gained popularity and getting attention from the users ofthe countries advocating modern medicine. Due to the growing popularity WHO has to come out \vith guidelines and policies for the approval of TM at a wider aspect. Lack of formal research, systematic development of protocols, standard analysis methods make the TM questionable from the safety and efficacy point of view. It is very important to conduct proper research study ofTM to ensure the safety and efficacy of the TM

Phytochemical and cytotoxicity evaluation of lagerstroemia speciosa (L.) leaves extract by MCF-7 cell line and brine shrimp lethality bioassay

This study aimed to investigate the cytotoxicity of Lagerstroemia speciosa (L.) leaves crude extract. It has been reported to show various bioactivities. The phytochemical screening of the extract has been carried qualitatively. The cytotoxic effect was determined through in vitro MTT assay of MCF-7 cell line, and brine shrimp lethality bioassay. The presence or absence of alkaloid, carbohydrate, glycoside, saponin, terpene, steroid, phenol, and flavonoid in the extract was determined through the qualitative tests. The extract showed cell viability of 100% (1.95–3.9 μL/mL), 96% (1.95 μL/mL), ≈ 95% (3.9–15.62 μL/ mL) and 88% (250 μL/mL) while the mortality of brine shrimp nauplii was from 5% to 10% (7.8 – 125 μL/mL) respectively. For both assays, DMSO of 1 & 0.1% were used as vehicle controls, while the potassium dichromate as the positive control for the brine shrimp only. These results proved the leaves extract to be non-toxic

Fish wastewater treatment with "PACP" filter and reuse of the treated water

Powdered activated carbon pellet (PACP) filter was found very effective for the removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and nutrient from the fish wastewater. It was found in the study that fish waste water generated from rearing tilapia fish in a glass aquarium for 48 hours had high organic and nutrient content. This high organic and nutrient containing wastewater while passed through the 30 cm PACP filter could remove 90% COD, 93% phosphate and 85% ammonia nitrogen after 10 L of fish wastewater loading. The optimum flow rate for the PACP filter was 100 ml/min. In a comparative study it was found that PACP filter had a better COD removal capacity compared to a same size granular activated carbon (GAC) filter. After 10 L loading of fish wastewater GAC filter showed only 50% removal where as it was 90% for PACP filter. PACP filter did not reach to the breakthrough level or exhausted after continuous loading of 35 L of fish wastewater. Filtered PACP filter wastewater was used for rearing tilapia fish and up to the fourth water changing with a 48 hour interval, the fish was in good condition and no death occurred. Key words:

Seasonal changes effects on the serotonin and melatonin transmission

Neurotransmission of serotonin and its derivative is said to be effected by changing of season in temperate countries. The effect of photoperiod and temperature can alter the production of serotonin and melatonin in body. The depression in serotonin availability in brain leads to a depressive or bipolar disorder. The activity of tryptophan hydroxylase to synthesis serotonin and monoamine oxidase (MAO) to inactivate serotonin is affected by season change. Calcitriol can stimulate tryptophan hydroxylase to produce serotonin. CREM gene works by memorizing work base on previous memory on how much serotonin will be produce. Melatonin it’s a serotonin derivative act as endocrine because it produce from pineal gland and retina. Melatonin has diurnal circadian pattern. Melatonin production is not decline by increasing in age. Arylalkylamine N-acetyltransferase (AA-NAT) gene is one of the cAMP inducible genes is an enzyme important in production of melatonin. Key words: Serotonin, melotonin transmission, depression, calcitrio

High performance liquid chromatographic determination of mefenamic acid in human plasma using UV vis detector

Objective: Mefenamic Acid (MA) is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAIDs). This drug provides analgesic and antipyretic (fever reducing effect) and higher doses, anti-inflammatory effect. This study is focused to develop a rapid and sensitive method for the detection of mefenamic acid in human plasma. Methods: Protein precipitation technique using acetonitrile was used. Chromatographic separation was achieved on Agilent Zorbax Eclipse XDB-C18 Results: The recovery was found 83% for MA. The method was validated according to the Centre for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) guidelines. Calibration plot was linear within the range from 250 to 5000ng ml(150 mm x 4.6 mm, i. d 3.5 μm) with a mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile and 2% triethylamine (pH was adjusted to 4.2 with phosphoric acid) in a ratio of 60:40. The retention time for mefenamic acid and diclofenac was 5.4 and 3.9 minutes respectively. The mefenamic acid was monitored at 280 nm using variable-wavelength detector. -1 with the coefficient of determination (r2 Conclusion: The results were in compliance with CDER guideline. ) of ≥ 0.99. The quality control samples of mefenamic acid which was termed as low (L), medium (M) and high (H) were analysed to get the precision and accuracy. The accuracy for intra-day for L, M and H was 99.71%, 93.8% and 89.52% while for inter day were 97.67%, 93.46% and 91.67% respectively. On the other hand, coefficient variance (CV) for intra-day precision for L, M and H was found 2.57%, 2.45% and 1.45% and for inter day CV were 3.11%, 5.5% and 4.37% respectively. Diclofenac sodium was used as internal standard for this study. Keywords: HPLC, Mefenamic Acid, Human plasma, UV detector, Protein precipitation

Clarification of turbid lake water using novel coagulant from peat soil

Malaysian peat soil usually categorised as tropical peat soil was chemically modified to work as a coagulant. This coagulant was found very effective for the removal of turbidity from lake and river water in a laboratory scale study. It was found that turbidity could be as low as 5 FTU after treatment with peat coagulant. Besides turbidity there was a reduction of suspended solids and chemical oxygen demand (COD) observed in this study. pH plays an important role for the clarification using peat coagulant. It was found that at acidic pH peat coagulant showed a better clarification compared to basic pH. It was mainly due to the chemical characteristics of the peat coagulant itself. The mechanism for the coagulation was suggested as charge adsorption neutralisation process. The effectiveness of peat coagulant was also compared with the commercial coagulant such as alum. Study revealed that the result obtained for different water quality parameters using alum as a coagulant was comparable with that of peat coagulant

Antimicrobial activity of bBanana (Musa paradisiaca L.) peels against food borne pathogenic microbes

Banana (Musa paradisiaca L.) peels are usually considered as wastes and are discarded during the processing, which eventually contribute to polluting the environment. Hence, this study was aimed to evaluate the antimicrobial activity of two different varieties of M. paradisiaca peels, i.e., Nangka (M. paradisiaca variety Nangka) and Tanduk (M. paradisiaca variety Tanduk) with regard to generate safe and cheap antimicrobials as well as address pollution related issues due to such wastes. Antimicrobial study was carried out on the extracts using disc diffusion and broth micro-dilution methods. The best activity through disc diffusion method for bacteria and fungi was demonstrated by Tanduk peel’s ethanol and dichloromethane extracts against S. aureus (30 mm) and C. krusei (10 mm), respectively. However, the least active bacteria and fungi were found to be V. parahaemolyticus and C. albicans, respectively. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values ranged from 6.25 to 100 mg/mL. Tanduk peel’s ethanol extract exhibited the lowest MIC and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) values against B. cepacia (6.25 mg/mL) whereas for fungi, Tanduk peel’s dichloromethane extract exhibited lowest MIC and minimum fungicidal concentration (MFC) values against C. albicans (25 mg/mL). The results of MBC or MFC showed that some extracts were bactericidal or fungicidal while others were bacteriostatic or fungistatic against certain microbes. Banana peel waste’s extracts could be potential antimicrobial alternatives and may be effective to utilize as a natural source of antimicrobial agent in pharmaceutical industries. Key words: Musa paradisiaca L., Nangka, Tanduk, Antimicrobial activity, MIC, MBC, MFC

Evaluation of different extraction method for the isolation of cetirizine from human plasma for HPLC analysis

Cetirizine is a second generation anti-histamin H1-receptor antagonist, used to treat cold or allergy. This drug is a white, crystalline powder, freely soluble in water, practically insoluble in acetone and in methylene chloride. Cetirizine is a non-sedating antihistamin because it crossed blood brain barrier slightly,reduces sedative side effect. In allergic inflammatory process, this drug influences the activities of eosinophils, neutrophils and platelets.It inhibits eosinophils in allergen-induced type I skin reaction and eosinophil chemotaxis in vitro by reducing the expression of ICAM-1and soluble ICAM-1in epithelial cells.Malaysian government has implemented bioequivalence study for the registration of generic products and our study is in line with the regulatory requirement. Besides so far there is no report of such study on cetirizine in Malaysia.The study focused on the preliminary chromatographic detection and determination of cetirizine in human plasma. Different sample extraction process were evaluated namely protein precipitation and liquid-liquid extraction. In protein precipitation, two solvents were used; acetonitrile and chloroform and for liquid� liquid extraction, dichloromethane and ethyl acetate with the various buffers were used. It was found protein precipitation using acetonitrile showed a better recovery (86%)compared to chloroform. For the liquid liquid extraction using dichloromethane the recovery was 80% while with the addition of buffer it did not show a good result. Liquid liquid extraction using dichloromethane with addition of sodium chloride showed 52% recovery.High Performance Liquid Chromatography(HPLC)was used for the analysis of the spiked plasma samples.The column used was aC18 column and mobile phase was combination of trietylamine and acetonitrile with the ratio of 65:35.Elution of cetirizine was detected with a UV-Vis detector at 232nm wavelength