Medicinal attributes of Acacia nilotica Linn. - A comprehensive review on ethnopharmacological claims

Herbal medicine is still the mainstay of about 70-80% of world population, main ly in the developing countries, for primary health care because of better cultural acceptability, better compatibility with human body with lesser side effects. Acacia nilotica is also a popular ornamental avenue tree in India. This review aimed at revealing brief account of plant part used, mode of admin istration, the animal model, description of Pharmacological activity and results concluded for the same. Key-Words: Acacia nilotica, Antimicrobial, Antioxidant, Antispasmodial, Molluscicidal, Antihypertensive, Analgesic & Antiinflammatory activ ity Introduction The World Health Organizat ion (WHO) has listed more than 21,000 p lants, which are used for many medicinal purposes around the world (1). They observed that about 74% of 119 plant-derived pharmaceutical medicines are used in modern medicine. It also estimates that 4 billion people (80 percent of the world population) presently use herbal medicine for health care (2). Over hundreds of years, herbal medicines derived from medicinal plants minerals and organic matter is still the mainstay of about 75–80% of the world’s population for health care marketed and gaining popularity in developed and developing countries (3). Herbs have medicinal property due to presence of different active principles like alkaloids, volatile essential oils, glycosides, resins, oleoresins, steroids, tannins, terpenes and phenols (4). In the last few years there is an exponential growth in the field of herbal medicine because of their natural origin, easy availability, efficacy, safety and less side effects with efficient to cure age-related disorders like memory loss, osteoporosis, immune disorders, etc. for which no modern medicine is availab le. (5,6). * Corres ponding Author: E-mail: [email protected] Mob.: 09993599242 Medicinal p lant researchers pursued with several goals like the development of low cost therapeutic compounds and the discovery of prototypic drugs (7). Acacia nilotica (L.) Willd. ex Del. is also known as Gum Arab ic tree, Babul, Egyptian thorn, or Prickly Acacia is mult ipurpose nitrogen fixing tree legume. It occurs from sea level to over 2000m and withstand at extreme temperature (>50 o C) and air dryness but sensitive to frost when it is young (8). It is widely spread in subtropical and tropical Africa from Egypt to Mauritania southwards to South Africa, and in Asia eastwards to Pakistan and India (9, 10). Taxonomical classification Kingdom : Plantae Subkingdom : Tracheobionta Super division : Spermatophyta Div ision : Magnoliophyta Class : Magnoliopsida Subclass : Rosidae Order : Fabales Family : Fabaceae Genus : Acacia Species : nilotica Research Article [Malviya et al., 2(6): June, 2011]