(Natural News) In this study, researchers from Nigeria and Malaysia evaluated the ability of hexane, methanol and aqueous leaf extracts of Senna occidentalis (coffee senna) to prevent B-hematin formation in vitro. They reported their findings in an article published in the International Journal of Herbal Medicine.

• The search for natural antimalarial agents from plant sources has yielded significant success in drug discovery approaches.
• In Northern Nigeria, S. occidentalis, is a medicinal plant traditionally used in Hausa folk medicine to treat malaria.
• The researchers tested the inhibitory activities of S. occidentalis leaf extract derived using different solvents against B-hematin formation and heme polymerization in vitro.
• They reported that the methanolic and aqueous leaf extracts showed good inhibitory activities (83.08 percent and 83.97 percent, respectively) at 500 mcg/mL, while the hexane extract only inhibited B-hematin formation by 54.92 percent.
• In vitro antimalarial assays also revealed that the extracts suppressed plasmodium growth in a dose-dependent manner.
• At 6.25 mcg/mL, the hexane extract suppressed parasite growth by 73 percent, but this increased to 84.43 percent at 50 mcg/mL.
• The IC50 value of the S. occidentalis hexane extract was 3.47 mcg/mL.
• The researchers also confirmed the presence of anthraquinones, phenols, tannins, alkaloids and flavonoids in S. occidentalis.