ABSTRACT: Hepatic damage is a global metabolic and epidemic disease, affecting essential biochemical activities in almost every age group. Conventional drugs used in the treatment of liver disorders are often inadequate. Also, the spectrum of liver abnormalities caused by allopathic drugs is found to be broad. In view of severely undesirable side effects of synthetic agents, it is necessary to search for alternative drugs for the treatment of liver diseases to replace the currently used drugs, which are of doubtful efficacy and safety. Therefore, there is growing focus to follow systematic research methodology and to evaluate scientific basis for the traditional herbal medicines that are claimed to possess hepatoprotective activities. Use of herbal drugs in the treatment of liver diseases has a long tradition, especially in Eastern medicine and can be traced back as far as 2100 B.C. in ancient China (Xia Dynasty) and India (Vedic period), but evidence for efficacy is sparse. The current study is aimed at providing an overview of clinical and experimental studies carried out on the most effective and commonly used hepatoprotective plants and their beneficial aspects.

The optimization and microwave assisted extraction of stem bark of Terminalia arjuna, quantitative estimation of the marker compounds arjunic acid and arjunolic acid using HPTLC and the evaluation of free radical scavenging activity has been performed in this study. The central composite design was used for optimization and the values of parameters for optimized batch of microwave assisted extraction were 1000W (Power), 3 minutes (Time) and 1/120 (Solid/solvent ratio). The solvent system to carry out the HPTLC was toluene: acetic acid: ethyl acetate (5: 5: 0.5) and quantitative estimation was done using standard equations obtained from the marker compounds. The in-vitro free radical scavenging activity was performed spectrophotometrically using ascorbic acid as standard. The value of estimated percentage yield of arjunic acid and arjunolic acid was 1.42% and 1.52% which upon experimentation was obtained as 1.38% and 1.51% respectively. The DPPH assay of the different batches of microwave assisted extraction and marker compounds taken suggested that the marker compounds arjunic acid and the arjunolic acid were responsible for the free radical scavenging activity as the batch having the maximum percentage yield of the marker compounds showed best free radical scavenging effect as compared to standard ascorbic acid. The IC₅₀ value of the optimized batch was found to be 24.72 while that of the standard ascorbic acid was 29.83. Hence, the yield of arjunic acid and arjunolic acid has direct correlation with the free radical scavenging activity of stem bark extract of Terminalia arjuna and have potential to serve as active lead compounds for free radical scavenging activity.
Acetic Acid ; Ascorbic Acid ; Microwaves* ; Terminalia* ; Toluene