Acute toxicity profile of crude methanolic stem bark extract of Parkia biglobosa in West African Dwarf (WAD) goats

Abstract

Despite the high demand for herbal medicines for treatment of health disorder, there are still concerns associated with not only their use, but their safety. This study was aimed at providing information on the potential toxicity profile of the stem bark extracts of P. biglobosa in goats. For this purpose, the stem bark parts of P. biglobosa were collected and processed. The acute toxicity, biochemical and histopathological analysis in goats were determined. The results of phytochemical constituents revealed the presence of alkaloids, anthraquinones, cardiac glycosides, glycosides, oils, phlobatannins, reducing sugar, saponins and tannins (condensed and hydrolysable). The results of acute toxicity studies showed no mortality with up to 5000 mg/ kg of the body weight. The blood collected revealed that, CMSBE has no significant (p>0.05) effect on biochemical parameters of WAD goats. However, there were slight changes in glucose concentration, cholesterol and triglyceride level, though they were no statistically significant (p>0.05). The extracts did not also have deleterious effect on morphology of the tissues observed during histopathology. The study has scientifically established that, stem bark extract of P. biglobosa have LD50 that is greater than 5,000 mg/kg and it can be inferred that the plant might have a wide margin of safety typical of treatment of some diseases. It is therefore recommended that despite the non-toxicity as demonstrated in this present study, detailed toxic and pharmacological effects of the extracts of P. biglobosa stem bark in other animals should be investigated.