Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Anti-diarrhea effects of polysaccharides from Zingiber officinale rhizome on a rat diarrhea model

Dong-Mei Su, Jun-Biao Long, Xin-Ping Liu, Shu-Bin Li

The Department of Gastroenterology, South of Guangâ€™anmen Hospital, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing 102618, PR China;

For correspondence:- Shu-Bin Li Email: lisbcacms@sina.com

Accepted: 26 September 2018 Published: 31 October 2018

Citation: Su D, Long J, Liu X, Li S. Anti-diarrhea effects of polysaccharides from Zingiber officinale rhizome on a rat diarrhea model. Trop J Pharm Res 2018; 17(10):1999-2005 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v17i10.15

© 2018 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the anti-diarrhea effects of polysaccharides extracted from the rhizome of Zingiber officinale (ZRP) on diarrhea induced by folium sennae in rats.

Methods: Response surface methodology (RSM) based on the Box–Benhnken design (BBD) was performed to optimize ZRP extraction. Thereafter, experimental diarrheal rats induced by treatment with folium sennae were used to investigate the anti-diarrhea effects of ZRP. Diarrhea index, dilute stool rate, gastric residual rate, and intestinal propulsive rate were investigated. In addition, the levels of brain-gut peptides including cholecystokinin (CCK), ghrelin, and vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) in the small intestine of rats with diarrhea were determined using commercial ELISA kits.

Results: Optimal ZRP extraction was obtained with an extraction time of 1.4 h, ratio of water to the raw material of 30 mL/g, and extracting 2 times. ZRP treatment at doses of 50, 100, and 200 mg/kg significantly decreased the dilute stool rate and diarrhea index (p < 0.05) and increased gastric residual rate (p < 0.01) dose-dependently. ZRP lowered intestinal propulsive rate (100 and 200 mg/kg, p < 0.01). All ZRP doses (50, 100 and 200 mg/kg) also significantly reduced the levels of CCK (p < 0.01) but increased the levels of ghrelin and VIP (p < 0.01) in the small intestine.

Conclusion: ZRP exerts significant anti-diarrhea effects on experimental diarrheal rats induced by folium sennae via regulating the levels of brain-gut peptides. Further studies are required to determine if these effects can also be replicated in humans.

Keywords: Zingiber officinale, Polysaccharide, Response surface methodology, Anti-diarrhea, Cholecystokinin, Ghrelin, and Vasoactive intestinal peptide