The efficiency of Teucrium polium and Infliximab in an acetic acid induced experimental rat colitis model

Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are chronic, recurrent and inflammatory diseases of the gastrointestinal system, and still there is not a curative therapy for them. This study attempts to investigate the efficiency of Teucrium polium (TP) in a rat model which is a traditional medicine and frequently used due to its anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant features.Forty Albino Wistar rats were randomly divided into five experimental groups. First group was determined as sham group and only rectal serum physiologic was given. Rectal 4% acetic acid was given to all four groups to create experimental colitis on rat model. The second group was not treated but the third group received 5 mg/kg subcutaneous infliximab. The fourth group received 400 mg/kg TP by gavages and the fifth group received combination of both therapies for five days. At the end of the trial, histopathological scorings were made on dissected colons. In order to measure anti-inflammatory efficiency, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-?) levels were detected. Total anti-oxidant capacity (TAC) and total oxidant status (TOS) were used to measure oxidative stress. In contrast to group I, there was remarkable deterioration in histopathological scores, decreases in TAC values, and significant increases in TOS values and TNF-? levels? of group II. There was significant improvement in all parameters of group III and V in contrast to group II. Excluding the macroscopic scores and TOS values, there were statistically significant improvements in group IV. Combination of TP and infliximab did not make a difference.TP can be considered as an alternative therapy choice in the treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases since it has achieved a significant increase in anti-oxidant capacity, remarkable improvement in histopathological scores and assistive anti-inflammatory feature.