HYPOLIPIDEMIC ACTIVITY OF AEGLE MARMELOS LEAVES EXTRACT ON ALBINO WISTAR RATS

Aegle marmelos commonly known as bael, wood apple and stone apple, belongs to the family Rutaceae. It is a deciduous shrub. Young leaves are pale green or pinkish, finely hairy while mature leaves are dark green and completely smooth and are used extensively in the indigenous system of medicine as an anti-diabetic agent and also as hypolipidemic agent. This study is aimed to evaluate the hypolipidemic activity of aqueous leaf extract of Aegle marmelos. The hypolipidemic activity of the plant were studied by administering aqueous leaf extract on Albino Wistar rats, using serum lipid profile i.e., high density lipo-protein (HDL), very low-density lipo-protein (VLDL), total cholesterol (TC) and triglyceride (TG) profile. The animals were divided into six groups, each group consists of six rats and the study is designed by following standard protocol for the evaluation of hypolipidemic activity. In this study, the treatment with standard hypolipidemic drug Pioglitazone is compared with the treatment of aqueous leaf extract of Aegle marmelos at dose levels of 100, 200 and 400mg/kg body weight. Hypolipidemic activity was observed best with all the dose levels based on lipid profiles (VLDL, HDL, TC and TG). Key words: Aegle marmelos, Hypolipidemic activity, VLDL, HDL, TC and TG.