T. Conophorum Lab Report

The leaves, bark and fruit of the T. conophorum have been reported to treat a number of diseases including giddiness, toothache, eczema, pruritus, psoriasis, common cold, prostate cancer and male infertility [8]. However, the fact that an herbal preparation is of natural origin does not necessarily make it safe. The active ingredients of plant extracts are chemicals like those of synthetic or purified drugs. In low amounts, they may be ineffective, while in the right amounts, they may prove beneficial. When large quantities are used and for a prolonged period, plant extracts may be injurious to health. They have the potential to cause serious toxic effects [3]. It is therefore pertinent to establish the safety of medicinal plant preparations
conophorum displayed no appreciable change in physical activity and no apparent toxicity symptoms or mortality up to 24 hours post treatment, indicating that the LD50 of the aqueous extract of the plant was found to be greater than 3500 mg/kg, which may be accepted as safe [15]. Similar observations have been reported by Dahanukaret. al. [26] for ethanolic extract of Newbouldialaevisleaf (5400 mg/kg), ethanolic extracts of Ailanthus excelsa(1000 mg/kg), Toddaliaasiatica(350 mg/kg) and Araucaria bidwilli(250 mg/kg).All the rats used for the sub-chronic toxicity study appeared normal before, during and after the treatment. Mortality was not observed at any of the dose levels used in this study. There is a positive effect of T. conophorum extract on the weight status of the test rats. The weights of rats given the plant extract in all groups remained higher in contrast to those rats not given the plant extract (control group) at the end of the 28 days with exception of 500 and 1000 mg/kg groups which showed a non-significant reduction during the first week. Thisshowed that the physical status of the rats were better. So the plant extract did not impose any acute fluid loss, proteolysis and lipolysis on the test rats and therefore the rats had no great loss in body weight [26].We also compared the feeding patterns of control group with those groups treated with the extract and
conophorum leaves contains saponins, tannin, steroid, flavonoid, terpenoids and cardiac glycosides as their major secondary metabolites while alkaloid, phlobatannin and anthraquninone were absent (Table 4). This result was contrary to the report of Ayoolaet al.[33] who reported presence of alkaloid, tannin and absence of saponins, steroid, flavonoid, terpenoids, cardiac glycosides, phlobatannin and anthraquninone for T. conophorum seeds while some of the phytochemical constituents reported in our study were similar to the work of Obianime and Uche[34] who reported the presence of flavonoid, tannin, alkaloids, carbohydrate, volatile oils, terpenoids, saponins and cardiac glycosides in the seeds of Tetracarpidium conophorum. Also, the extract contains high content of total phenolic (29.31 ± 0.47) and vitamin C (23.49 ± 0.04) with appreciable amount of total flavonoid (10.32 ±