Gupta Pooja, Birdi Tannaz
The Foundation for Medical Research, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
J Ayurveda Integr Med. 2015 Jan-Mar;6(1):50-2. doi: 10.4103/0975-9476.146557.
Diarrheal diseases are the second highest cause of mortality of children under 5 years worldwide. There is a continuous search for developing a cost-effective treatment for diarrhea as the present ones are facing challenges. Medicinal plants can be explored further as an alternative treatment for diarrhea. Psidium guajava leaves have been used as an antidiarrheal globally. Citrobacter rodentium, a common mouse pathogen, is known to mimic the pathogenecity of enteropathogenic and enterohemorrhagic E. coli. It can thus present an effective model to study infectious diarrhea. In the present study, the P. guajava leaf extract was tested for its efficacy in treating infectious diarrhea using a C. rodentium mouse model. The mice in the test group (treated with P. guajava leaf extract) showed quicker clearance of infection as compared with the control group. The bacterial load in the fecal sample of the mice in the test group was high on Day 4 as compared with that in the control group, suggesting a flush out of the bacteria. In the test group, 6/7 (85.71%) mice showed clearance of infection by Day 19. The control group continued to show infection till Day 29. P. guajava leaf extract thus has the potential for use in the treatment of infectious diarrhea.
腹泻病是全球5岁以下儿童死亡的第二大原因。由于目前的腹泻治疗方法面临挑战，人们一直在不断寻求开发一种经济有效的治疗方法。药用植物可作为腹泻的替代治疗方法进一步探索。番石榴叶在全球范围内都被用作止泻药。鼠柠檬酸杆菌是一种常见的小鼠病原体，已知它能模拟肠道致病性大肠杆菌和肠出血性大肠杆菌的致病性。因此，它可以作为研究感染性腹泻的有效模型。在本研究中，使用鼠柠檬酸杆菌小鼠模型测试了番石榴叶提取物治疗感染性腹泻的疗效。与对照组相比，试验组（用番石榴叶提取物治疗）的小鼠感染清除更快。试验组小鼠粪便样本中的细菌载量在第4天比对照组高，这表明细菌被排出。在试验组中，6/7（85.71%）的小鼠在第19天显示感染清除。对照组直到第29天仍显示有感染。因此，番石榴叶提取物有潜力用于治疗感染性腹泻。
