ABSTRACT
Introduction: The commonest day to day ailment of humanbeings is the gastrointestinal diseases. Apart from traditionaluses, there are several reports on important pharmacologicalactions of musa sapientum. Study aimed to compare acidsecretion and ulcer healing effect of methanolic extract ofbanana, ranitidine, and omeprazole.Material and methods: The present study was carried out on30 albino rats for a period of 7 days. The animals were dividedrandomly into 5 groups of 6 animals each. Group I or controlgroup received 3% gum acacia suspension orally for 7 days.Group II, III, IV and V received 100mg/kg of aspirin orally asa single dose the 7th day. Group III was pretreated with 100mg/kg of MSE orally for 7 days. Group IV was pretreated with 20mg/kg omeprazole and Group V was pretreated with 150mg/kg of ranitidine orally for 7 days. After the administration ofthe drugs on the 7th Day, the albino rats were fasted for 24 hrsand then sacrificed after 4 hrs of pyloric ligation.Results: In the control group (n=6) the values of ulcer index(µmol tyrosin/ml), free acidity (mEq/l), total acidity (mEq/l),and volume of gastric juice (ml/4 hrs) were 0.22±0.01,53.25±2.59, 72.24±4.19 and 5.1±0.32 respectively. Whencompared to aspirin treated group, the MSE pretreated group(100 mg/kg) single dose orally on 7th day showed significantreduction (p<0.01, n=6) of ulcer index, free and total acidity(mEq/l), and volume of gastric juice (ml/4 hrs), whosevalues were 5.3±0.46, 71.31±4.15, 72.24±4.19 and 65.4±2.9respectively.Conclusion: The present study suggests that themethanolic extract of musa sapientum possesses significantulceroprotective effect, which is comparable to omeprazoleand ranitidine, except for gastric juice, where the effect ofomeprazole was more. The observations of the present studyputs forward omeprazole as a promising ulceroprotectiveagent, but further studies with more refined extracts andtechniques on animal and human subjects are requiredto establish the true potential in terms of therapeutic andeconomic viability of this herbal plant.