BigPatents India

Population explosion is a serious problem in all developing nations. Development of highly effective and economical vaginal contraceptive will be extremely useful if haulting population flux. The vernacular medicinal use of Alstonia macrophylla leaf extract to treat urinary infections, skin diseases and stomachache provides multiple advantages. The antibacterial and antifungal properties of he ursolic acid (Kowalewski et al. 1976; Sattar et al. 1995) may be protective to some degree against a few sexually transmitted infections. It is therefore, contemplated to exploit these properties of ursolic acid, a major compound in this formulation, in the preparation of spermicidal contraceptives. Use of such compounds as vaginal contraceptive may be extremely beneficial to the millions of couples all over the world. An exclusive herbal vaginal contraceptive in hydrolipid matrix has beeb formulated using selected fractions from leaf and bark of Alstonia macrophylla, endemic to Bay Islands. Selected fractions containing active compounds of this lead with sodium benzoate as preservative and a few additives as well as oil in water/hydrolipid matrix for value addition and more penetration efficiency. The extract and the n-butanol fractions at 600 mug ml-1 concentration showed marked inhibition of forward motility of active human sperms. About 60-80% of the spermatozoa lost their forward motility at this concentration. At 100 mug ml-1 concentration ursolic acid fraction showed 90% loss of forward motility while at 400 mug ml-1 concentration complete inhibition of forward motility of sperms took place at 0 min. The inhibitory activity of the extract increases with the increasing concentration, in a dose dependent manner. The results reveal that the formulation has the potential of sperm motility inhibition and can serve as a topical vaginal contraceptive.