Acute and 28-day repeated oral toxicological evaluation of Kuruthi Azhal Chooranam – a Siddha preparation on rodents

Objective: To determine the effect of phytochemicals in acute and repeated dose of 28-day oral toxicity of Kuruthi Azhal Chooranam (KAC) in Sprague Dawley rats of both sexes. Methods: Acute oral toxicity was conducted with 2000 mg/kg body weight of KAC orally and the treated animals were observed for signs of toxicity at 30 min, 1, 2, 4 and 24 h and for up to 14 days. In repeated 28-day oral toxicity study, the KAC formulation was administered orally with 600, 900 and 1200 mg/kg body weight/day to all the three groups of rats. The animals were observed for clinical signs of toxicity, mortality and morbidity throughout the study. Also body weight, feed consumption, haematological, plasma biochemistry and serum electrolytes, gross pathology, weights of the organ and histology were studied for no-observed-adverseeffect level. High dose of KAC formulation and control reversal groups were also included for delayed toxic effects determination. Results: In the acute toxicity study of KAC formulation, 2 000 mg/kg body weight dose exhibited no toxic signs and mortality during study. In sub-acute 28-day repeated dose toxicity study, there was no significant difference found between control and KAC treated groups (body weight, haematology, biochemistry and serum electrolytes). No abnormalities was found in gross pathology, organs weight and histological observation after KAC treatment. Conclusions: The current study suggests that LD50 of KAC was > 2 000 mg/kg and noobserved-adverse-effect level was > 1 200 mg/kg/day in rats. KAC could be used as Siddha drug for various indications