Essay On Inflammation

Inflammation is a protective response by the body towards cell injury, irritation, infection and can accumulate fluids with the following signs and symptoms: redness, warmth, swelling and pain. Inflammation is therefore the body’s way of attempting to remove the primary cause of inflammation and any damage that may have occurred as a result (healing and repair) (Drake et al., 2007). Today numerous drugs are used to treat conditions of inflammation such as narcotics (opioids), and non narcotics (salicylates), however these drugs accumulate side effects. That is why drugs from natural sources are referred to be a better inflammatory agent considering the presence of low toxicity and its therapeutic value. Natural drugs are considered as a big
The sunflower has petals that radiate a bright yellow color with studded seeds in the center. The flower produces grayish green or sometimes black seeds that are similar to a tear-dropped shaped having black or gray shells. The sunflower is native to North America. American Indian tribes used sunflower to be mixed with other food and meals like vegetables, beans, squash, corn and others. Sunflower also produces oil when pounded and they use it for baking bread. For non-food uses they use it for body painting and dying hair. The oil coming from the sunflower was used as an ointment to heal snakebites and other skin infection or wounds. Sunflower oil has been used for numerous researches to prove or know the benefits of this to the human body. The oil comes from the seeds, but researchers cease to study and test the sunflower seeds alone, by not doing any extraction or experimentation on the seeds. This motivated the researcher to do this study. Research aims to test the sunflower seeds’ anti-inflammatory activity on carrageenan induced edema without doing any extraction of oil form the seeds or addition of chemicals to it to test its anti-inflammatory