Objective: Diarrhea is a major global health issue that has become increasingly prevalent in developing countries. In Bangladesh, Mimosa pigra L. is used traditionally for the treatment of diarrhea and also to control infection. Our main objective was to evaluate whether the methanolic extract of Mimosa pigra (MEMP) leaves has the antidiarrheal effect as well as the antibacterial effect against diarrhea-causing bacteria.
Methods: The antibacterial potentialities of MEMP leaves were investigated by the disc diffusion method against six Gram-positive and six Gram-negative bacteria at 500 μg/disc. Kanamycin (30 μg/disc) was used as the standard drug. Antidiarrheal activities of leaf extracts were determined at two doses (200 and 400 mg/kg) in a castor oil and magnesium sulfate-induced diarrheal model in mice. The results were evaluated by One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) followed by Dunnet’s test. **P<0.01 and ***P<0.001 were considered significant compared to control.
Results: The MEMP leaves exhibited moderate to potent antimicrobial activity with the zone of inhibition range 11 to 17 mm against diarrhea causing bacteria such as Salmonella paratyphi (16.33 mm), Salmonella typhi (17 mm), Shigella boydii (12 mm), Shigella dysenteriae (12.67 mm) and Escherichia coli (11 mm). Furthermore the severity of diarrhea was significantly reduced (P<0.001) by MEMP leaves at a dose of 400 mg/kg (13±2.16) compared to control (30.25±2.87) by castor oil-induced method. The same dose of the extract also significantly inhibited (P<0.01) the severity of diarrhea (14.75±1.71) compared to control (24±2.16) by magnesium sulfate-induced diarrheal model. The percent inhibition of diarrhea in 3h by MEMP leaves at a dose of 400 mg/kg was 57.02% and 38.54% in castor oil and magnesium sulfate-induced diarrheal model, respectively.
Conclusion: Confirmed findings in this study naturally suggested that MEMP leaves could be an effective antibacterial and antidiarrheal formulation
