Analgesic and anti-inflammatory activities of [6]-gingerol

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Abstract

In the present study, the analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects of [6]-gingerol, which is the pungent constituent of ginger, were performed. Intraperitoneal administration of [6]-gingerol (25 mg/kg–50 mg/kg) produced an inhibition of acetic acid-induced writhing response and formalin-induced licking time in the late phase. [6]-Gingerol (50 mg/kg–100 mg/kg) also produced an inhibition of paw edema induced by carrageenin. These results suggested that [6]-gingerol possessed analgesic and anti-inflammatory activities.

Introduction

Herbal medicines are increasingly used by the general population (Austin, 1998), Zingiber officinale ROSCOE (family Zingiberaceae) is one of the most frequently used ingredients in Chinese folk medicine for treatment of various infectious disease. Gingerols, the active components of ginger, represent a potential new class inhibitor of platelet activators. (Koo et al., 2001). [6]-Gingerol has been found to possess a variety of interesting pharmacological effects, for example, antipyretic, cardiotonic effects, and inhibition of spontaneous motor activity and prostaglandin biosynthesis (Suekawa et al., 1984, Kiuchi et al., 1992). [6]-Gingerol has been used as a marker substance of ginger. The [6]-gingerol contents in different preparations were evaluated (Young and Chen, 2002). However, little information is availabile on the analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects of [6]-gingerol. Therefore, we examined the effects of [6]-gingerol on Nociception induced by acetic acid and formalin in mice and paw edema induced by λ-carrageenin (CARR) in rats.

Section snippets

Chemicals

[6]-Gingerol used in this study was purchased from WAKO company (Japan). The company guaranteed batch-to-batch chemical consistency by high performance liquid chromatograph and biological reliability by lymphocyte proliferation assay. Its purity was more than 99%. Acetic acid and formalin were purchased from Darmstadt (F.R. Germany). Carrageenin, indomethacin, aspirin were obtained from Sigma (St. Louis, MO, USA).

Animals

Male ICR mice (18 g–22 g) and female Wistar rats (180 g–240 g) were obtained from the

Results and discussion

Fig. 1 shows the pain behavior of writhing response which is presented as cumulative abdominal stretching response. The treatment of animals with [6]-gingerol (25 mg/kg, 50 mg/kg) produced a significant and dose dependent inhibition of the control writhes. The inhibition by [6]-gingerol (25 mg/kg) was similar to that produced by indomethacin (10 mg/kg). The acetic writhing test is normally used to study the peripheral analgesic effects of drugs. Although this test is a nonspecific (e.g.,

Acknowledgements

We are thankful to the China Medical University for the financial support of this manuscript under contract No. CMC91-CPS-03, CMC92-CPS-03.

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