Kalyani H Barve, Ginpreet Kaur, Aadesh Kumar and Saloni Daftardar
Introduction: Murraya koenigii is commonly available condiment having a wide spectrum of pharmacological activities. It has folklore use for treatment of hypertension and is reported to have ACE inhibitory activity. Therefore, the present study is proposed to identify the antihypertensive effect of the Murraya koenigii. The increasing use of herbal medicine has raised the concern of the potential interactions between the herbs and the conventional drugs. Hence we have further tried to investigate the interactions of this extract with amlodipine, which in turn has a narrow therapeutic index. Method: The alcoholic extract of the leaves was prepared and subjected to acute toxicity studies as per the OECD guideline 423. The extract was evaluated for its antihypertensive effect on cadmium chloride induced hypertension in rats. The extract was also co administered with amlodipine in normal rats to study pharmacodynamic interactions. Result: The extract was found to contain steroids, alkaloids, glycosides, flavonoids, phenolic compounds and carbohydrates. It was found to be safe at the dose of 2000 mg/kg. The extract showed hypotensive effect at the dose of 250 mg/kg and an antihypertensive effect at the dose of 150 mg/kg. The combination of extract with Amlodipine showed a profound hypotensive effect, suggesting a synergistic interaction between the extract and Amlodipine resulting in mortality. Conclusion: To conclude with, the drug-herb interactions pose a serious threat to public and require immense research for their identification and investigation. When a combination therapy is used, factors such as a safe drug combination and dose adjustment should be considered by the physician especially with the drugs having narrow therapeutic indices.