The antiulcerative effect of Thai Musa species in rats

Bananas are reported to have an antipeptic ulcer effect, however, the beneficial action can be affected by many factors, including the variety. Our study was undertaken to investigate the antipeptic ulcer effect of the Palo and Horn varieties of banana, grown and consumed in the northeast of Thailand. Indomethacin and acetic acid-induced gastric lesions in rats were employed as models of peptic ulcer disease. The lengths of gastric lesions in the glandular part of the stomach were measured for the assessment of the protective effect of bananas. The healing effect was studied by histological examination of the ulcerated area. The lesions in rats treated with the extract of banana were significantly less dominant than those of the control. The average length of total lesions of rats treated with an extract of Palo or Horn bananas at a dose of 1.0 g/kg/d for 3 days prior to indomethacin administration were 4.47 +/- 1.2 and 1.87 +/- 0.44 nun, respectively, whereas those observed in the control rats were 14.56 +/- 2.43 mm. In the ulcer-healing model, only the Hom-banana-extract-treated group showed a beneficial effect which manifested as a milder degree of histological change than that of the indomethacin-induced-chronic-ulcer control group. However, in acetic acid-induced ulcers, the histological changes of every group were similar. The present findings indicate that bananas of different varieties have varying antipeptic ulcer effects. The extracts of Palo and Hom bananas have a prominent gastroprotective effect, whereas only the extract of Hom banana had an observed ulcer-healing effect. Copyright @ 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.