Posted by admin on Jun 1, 2014 in |
Background: Health care professionals, patients, public, patient caretakers, and other professionals prefer to ask their medication-related questions to community pharmacists as they are easily accessible to them. It is challenging for pharmacists to keep up the pace of medicine discovery and development and have better and effective information than the patients retrieve information independently. Aim and objectives: The aim of this study was to identify information resources of medicine used by the community pharmacists in various parts of Oman to update the knowledge and provide updated and effective information to the patient and other medical professionals. Other objectives of this study were to know the most common primary, secondary, tertiary, web based and other information resources used by the community pharmacists. Methods: Total of 71 community pharmacies in different parts of Oman were contacted personally. Pharmacists at the sample community pharmacies completed a self-administered questionnaire that consisted of six sections. First section presented demography of population for the study. Second section elicited type of sources of information the community...
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Posted by admin on Jun 1, 2014 in |
Houttuynia cordata Thunb. (H. cordata) is used as a remedy for diarrhoea and dysentery in Asia, but has not been investigated for its antidiarrhoeal properties. Antidiarrhoeal activity of 80% “methanol extract of H. cordata” (HCM) was investigated in this study using castor oil induced diarrhoea, castor oil induced intraluminal fluid accumulation as well as charcoal transit in wister albino rat. The extract significantly increased the latent period of diarrhoea in all the models. Preliminary phytochemical screening revealed the presence of flavonoids, saponins, and tannins. It is suggested that the extract may contain biologically active components that may be useful against diarrhoea, thereby justifying its use in ethnomedical practice as an antidiarrhoeal agent. The HCM produced a significant (P < 0.05) dose dependent decrease castor oil induced diarrhoeal faeces with values of 54.35% and 65.22% respectively at doses of 200 and 400 mg/kg vs. 93.48 for reference dose loperamide. The extract also significantly decreased the gastrointestinal motility 33.22% and 51.53% as well as fluid accumulation 26.53% and 43.54 at both...
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Posted by admin on Jun 1, 2014 in |
In the present endeavour, bioprospecting potentials (antimicrobial activity, antibiotic susceptibility pattern, enzyme activity and dye degradation ability) of endophytic bacteria isolated from different plants were explored. Total of thirty bacterial endophytes were isolated from the leaves of selected plants by using sterilization treatment followed by serial dilution agar plate technique. All the isolates were evaluated for the antimicrobial activity against 7 pathogenic strains including 2 Gram positive bacteria (Staphylococcus epidermidis and Bacillus amyloliquifaciens)and 2 Gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica ser. typhi)and 3 fungi (Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus sp. and Candida albicans) using agar well diffusion method. Of the 30 bacterial isolates, twenty endophytic bacterial isolates exhibited both antifungal and antibacterial activity. It was observed that 33.33% of isolates exhibited urease activity, 66.66% amylase activity, while 50% esterase activity. Malachite green degradation was observed in 16 (53.33%) endophytic bacterial isolates. The antibiotic susceptibility pattern of endophytic bacterial isolates was evaluated. Five Gram negative bacterial isolates were sensitive to Amikacin, Levofloxacin, Cephotaxime, four isolates sensitive to Aztreonam and three isolates...
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Posted by admin on Jun 1, 2014 in |
Background & objectives: Liver diseases are one of the major causes of disease burden all over world including our country so it is the need of hour to search for alternative drugs for the treatment of liver diseases. Aloe Vera is one of the most popular plants in the world, and is has been used frequently in history for its medicinal properties. Material &Methods: A total of 110 male and female patients of age group between 15- 65 years, diagnosed clinically and biochemically as the case of acute viral hepatitis and ready to give consent were recruited in the study from SVBP Hospital, LLRM Medical College Meerut (U.P), 250004. Subjects who fulfilled selection criteria were randomized into two groups. Fifty patients belonging to control group received conventional treatment for acute viral hepatitis while 60 patients enrolled in treated group were given conventional treatment for acute viral hepatitis supplemented with Aloe vera juice (Patanjali Ayurved ltd, Haridwar) in dose of 20 ml BD orally. Every patient was followed up for...
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Posted by admin on Jun 1, 2014 in |
The coriander seedextract in 80% methanol is examined for the polyphenol composition and the antimicrobial potential against pathogenic bacteria Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and Bacillus pumilus. Gallic acid, caffeic acid, ellagic acid, quercetin and kaempferol are principle polyphenolics identified and quantified in the coriander extract by HPLC. The antimicrobial activity was examined by determining cell damage and measuring cell inhibition zone. The growth inhibition zones observed by agar well diffusion method are 11.93 to 17.27 mm in diameter in presence of coriander extract. Minimum inhibitory concentration of coriander was 4.16 mg/ml for the bacteria tested. Increased release of intracellular nucleotides and proteinaceous materials from the bacterial cells in the presence of methanolic coriander extract suggests that the primary mechanism of action of coriander extract is membrane damage, which leads to cell death. The results obtained herein further encourage the use of coriander in antibacterial formulations due to the fact that polyphenol rich coriander extract could effectively kill pathogenic bacteria related to foodborne...
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