Olubunmi J Sharaibi1,
Oluwatoyin T Ogundipe2,
Olubunmi A Magbagbeola3,
Mutiu I Kazeem1,
Anthony J Afolayan1 
For correspondence:- Anthony Afolayan Email: aafolayan@ufh.ac.za Tel:+27822022167
Received: 26 December 2014 Accepted: 7 June 2015 Published: 29 July 2015
Citation: Sharaibi OJ, Ogundipe OT, Magbagbeola OA, Kazeem MI, Afolayan AJ. Acute and sub-acute toxicity profile of aqueous leaf extract of Nymphaea lotus Linn (Nymphaeaceae) in Wistar rats. Trop J Pharm Res 2015; 14(7):1231-1238 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v14i7.16
© 2015 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..
Purpose: To evaluate the acute and sub-acute toxicity profile of the aqueous leaf extract of Nymphaea lotus L in Wistar rats.
Methods: Acute toxicity study was performed by administering a single oral dose of 5000 mg/kg body weight of the extract to 5 rats while distilled water was given to another 5 rats (control), and the animals were observed for 14 days. Thereafter, 50, 100 and 200 mg/kg doses of the extract were administered to different groups of 5 rats each daily for 28 days while control received distilled water. At the end of the experiment, the animals were sacrificed and the serum obtained was used for the assessment of haematological and biochemical parameters. Histological examination was also performed on the liver and kidney of the rats.
Results: The concentrations of alanine aminotransferase (42.56 U/L), aspartate aminotransferase (126.01 U/L) and alkaline phosphatase (183.33 U/L) significantly decreased while creatinine (0.64 mg/dL) and chloride ions (94.50 mmol/L) were significantly elevated (p < 0.05) compared to those of control following the extract treatment. Haematological parameters were not significantly different (p > 0.05) from those of control except white blood cell count (7.80 × 109/L), lymphocytes (5.20 %) and monocytes (2.72 %) which were significantly elevated (p < 0.05) in the 100 and 200 mg/kg treated groups. Histopathology did not reveal any sign of lesions or pathological changes in the organs that could be attributed to treatment with the plant extract.
Conclusions: These results suggest that the aqueous leaf extract of Nymphaea lotus may be safe for use at the doses tested.
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