Herbal Medicine: Open Access

Indian traditional medicinal plants to control fertility

The current world population reached up to 7.9 billion and increasing at an alarming rate day by day, it imposed a serious threat to sustainable development and human existence. Although, contraceptives have been used to control fertility and check population. Birth control is an essential measure to provide basic needs viz food, shelter and employment. Conventional contraceptives used for family planning neither effective nor safe to users who wish to prevent fertility and check unintended pregnancies. Therefore, there is a great need to develop a cheap, safe, orally effective and reversible male contraceptive. Since, civilization plants provide an alternative remedies for therapeutics, in modern pharmacopeia, a number of drugs has been isolated and derived from plants used in traditional medicine. To control fertility plant (s) viz Carrica papaya, Embelia ribes, Gossypium sps, Hibiscus rosa sinensis, Lawsonia inermis, Malvaviscus conzattii, Montanoa tomentosa, Tripterigium wilfordii, (Lue et al, 1998; Sinha Hikim et al, 2000; Huynh et al,2000; Gogtay et al,2002; Gediya et al,2011; Ogbuewu et al,2011;Griffin, 1988; Sombonporn and Davis, 2004; Guuuerreoy and Guzman, 2004; Yamada et al., 2006; Hamden et al., 2008; Derakhshanfar et al., 2010; Sokal et al, 2010) or their products have been used as contraceptive agents in traditional medicine such to man. At the aiming to develop a safe, reversible male contraceptive, alcoholic extracts of Citrullus colocynthis, Euphorbia neriifoia, Martynia annua , Maytenus emargineta, Peganum harmala, Solanum xanthocarpum, Tecomella undulata were prepared and administered orally according to WHO protocol in healthy fertility proven male Wistar rats for 60 days at dose levels.The results reveal androgen deprivation effects of the extracts treatment, reduced significantly weight of testes, epididymides and other sex accessory reproductive organs. The fructose, protein, ascorbic acid and sialic acid contents of reproductive tract were significantly declined in the extracts treated rats as compared to treated vehicles. Degenerative changes in germinal epithelium of testes, reduced number of spermatocytes and mature spermatozoa in lumen of seminiferous tubules, decreased testicular and epididymal sperm density and motility of extract treated rats significantly reduced fertility of treated male rats resulted decreased number of pups in female rats mated with the males followed extracts treatment. Possible antispermatogenic effects and antiandrogenic activity of extracts will be discussed.

Author(s): Pratap Chand Mali

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