Piperine and Quercetin Enhances Antioxidant and Hepatoprotective effect of Curcumin in Paracetamol Induced Oxidative Stress

Drug induced hepatotoxicity is a category of physiological oxidative stress caused by 50% drugs. Curcumin obtained from Curcuma longa is a potent antioxidant and hepatoprotective but has low bioavailability. Piperine and Quercetin were combined with Curcumin enhances oral bioavailability by inhibiting metabolic enzyme. The enhanced availability was hypothesized to potentiate hepatoprotective activity of curcumin by enhancing the antioxidant activity. The in vitro and ex-vivo antioxidant activity was measured by DPPH and TBARS method, respectively. The albino wistar rats used for in vivo method were pre-administered for 7 days with curcumin combination consisting of Curcumin with Piperine and Quercetin (CPQ), silymarin was used as reference drug. The animals were challenged with paracetamol on 7th day to induce hepatotoxicity. Hepatoprotective activity was assessed by the levels of marker enzymes alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) in plasma. The present findings of in vitro and ex vivo study showed statistical significance (p<0.001) in IC50 results with 50% enhancement of activity by combinatorial extract. The serum levels of ALT, AST and ALP were significant (p<0.001) decrease by 53%, 35% and 33%, respectively after treatment with combinatorial extract. The study also suggests that oxidative stress appears to play a major role in hepatic toxicity and administration of combination consisting of CPQ protects against paracetamol toxicity thus could be taken as a platform for further studies as dose of CPQ can be reduced when curcumin was given in combination with piperine and quercetin than curcumin alone.