To optimize its safety use as a plant-based medicine, one should, beside the historical documentation on C. edulis, have

a toxicity assessment of this medicinal plant. Thus, the evaluation of the acute and sub-acute toxicities of C. edulis in the present study appears to be biologically essential. Acute Toxicity With the LD50 of 16.8 and kg in male and female mice respectively, the crude extract of C. edulis may be Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical considered fairly toxic.22,23 These result indicate that female mice are more tolerant to the C. edulis extract than males after oral administration. This is in contrary to the observation of Drici and Clement,24 and Liechti and co-workers,25 who showed that the adverse effects of drugs and toxic substances were more

pronounced in women than in men. A reduced reaction to noise was observed suggesting that the extract may have a depressant or sedative effect on the central nervous system.11 The administration of the extract to mice caused a reduced reaction to pinch. This decreased sensitivity may be due to the action of the extract Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical on the nociceptors or to the inhibition of the production of algogenic substances (e.g. prostaglandins or histamines), or Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical to the inhibition of the painful message transmission at the central level.26 Sub-Acute Toxicity Changes in body weight are used as an indicator of adverse effects of drugs and chemicals.27 In the sub-acute toxicity study, significant decreases in total weight gain were observed in the rats, which received the extract at

the dose of 200 mg/kg BW as compared to the control. This suggests that C. edulis had negative effect on Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical the HSP70 assay normal growth of rats. The reduction in total weight gain may be due to less food and water intake,28 after the administration of C. edulis extract. This growth retardation may also be due to the antilipidaemic effect of C. edulis extract as shown by the decrease of serum total cholesterol. The hematopoietic system is one of the most sensitive targets for toxic compounds, and is an important Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical index of physiological and pathological status in man and animal,29 In this study, a significant decrease in hematocrit values was also observed Montelukast Sodium in male from the dose of 200 mg/kg BW as compared to that of the control group, suggesting that the extract at high doses may have some effect on the red blood cells. This was confirmed by the decrease, though not significant, observed in red blood cells count of rats treated with the same doses. However, the normal values for hematocrit range from 34% to 48% in Wistar albino rats.30 In the present study, hematocrit value (45.0±1.2) of the male rats receiving the extract at the dose of 200 mg/kg BW was within the normal range. The biochemical parameters (i.e. serum levels of ALT, AST and creatinine) also showed significant increases in the group receiving the highest dose as compared to that of the control group.