PRECLINICAL STUDIES OF THREE DIURETIC PLANTS OF TRADITIONAL USE IN CUBA

Summary Although the herbal drugs have been used during centuries, alone a small quantity of plants has been investigated through scientific methods that validate its use for that reason the objective of this work is the pharmacological and toxicological evaluation of flowing extracts of three diuretic medicinal plants of wide popular use: Xanthium strumarium L, Lepidium virginicum L and Archryrantes aspera. It was carried out in the Toxicology and Pharmacology Experimental Unit of Camaguey. The diuretic action was evaluated for each extract according to the method of Lipschitz. For evaluation of diuresis, 40 female line Wistar rats was used distributed aleatorily in 5 groups. The groups were the following ones: G 1 negative control, G 2, 3 and 4 extracts dose of 200, 400 and 800 mg/Kg respectively and G 5 positive control. The used variables were: volumetric urinary excretion (VUE%) and excretion of electrolytes in urine. Toxicological evaluation was carried out according to the Acute Toxicity by Classes Method (CTA) starting from preset dose of 25, 200 and 2 000 mg/kg. The used variable was the variation of the corporal weight. In both studies it was carried out the variance analysis (ANOVA) of a classification road, followed by Tuckey multiple ranges test. The three researched extracts had an VUE % bigger that the negative control and in the case of the L. virginicum L. superior to the positive control. In all cases 400 mg/Kg of weight dose was the biggest VUE %. The three plants caused significant excretion of electrolytes. The evaluation toxicological of the extracts threw that plows not toxic for to 2000 mg/Kg of weight dose, significant decrease of corporal weight was not observed, neither signs nor symptoms that evidenced toxic effect existed.