Hepatoprotective Activity of Aruvadha churnam a Traditional Siddha Formulation against Paracetamol Induced Liver Damage in Rats

The hepatoprotective activity of each individual component of this formulation has been reported earlier7-13. Since the synergistic activity of all these components has not been reported, the present study aims at investigating the hepatoprotective effects of this traditional formulation on paracetamol induced liver damage. Changes involved in the anatomy or functions of liver are characterized as liver disease17. Since liver is a port of a variety of enzymatic metabolic activity, any damage to the hepatic cells leads to the release of the serum marker enzymes into the blood stream. AC formulation may also have scavenged liver by antioxidant mechanisms as it is evident that most of the herbs in the formulation were previously reported to have free radical scavenging effects23-29.Also it was reported that compounds that block or retard the chain reaction of oxidation may prevent oxidative stressinduced hepatotoxicity 30,31. [...]AC may have shown the hepatoprotective effect by maintaining the structural integrity of hepatocellular membrane and hepatic cell architecture against paracetamol-induced damage. The hepatoprotective effect of AC was dose dependent up to a dose of 1800 mg/kg b.w. but above this dose, ceiling effect was observed. [...]the degree of hepatic cellular damage is lesser in magnitude in AC-2 group when compared to AC-1 and AC-3 groups, thus proving its efficacy against paracetamol toxicity at medium dose.