Antimicrobial activity of Triphala against bacterial isolates from HIV infected patients

Introduction and objective: The uses of traditional medicinal plants for primary health care have steadily increased worldwide in recent years. Triphala has been used in the traditional medicine for the treatment of variety of diseases and therefore it becomes immense to study the phytochemical compounds and antibacterial activities. Aqueous and alcoholic extracts of both Triphala and its individual components were used, to evaluate antimicrobial activity.

Materials and methods: Phytochemical (phenolic, flavonoid and carotenoid) and antibacterial activities of aqueous ethanolic extracts of Triphala and its individual components (Terminalia chebula, T. belerica and Emblica officinalis) were tested against several bacterial isolates. Isolates were recovered from urethral swabs, seminal fluid, urine, high vaginal swabs, skin swabs, blood, and sputum specimen of HIV infected patients.

Results: Terminalia chebula has high phytochemical content followed by T. belerica and E. officinalis. In anti-bacterial activity, most of the bacterial isolates were inhibited by the ethanolic and aqueous extracts of T. chebula followed by T. belerica and E. officinalis in both disk diffusion and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) methods. But as a whole, Triphala did not show antibacterial activity. MIC of aqueous and ethanolic extracts of Triphala and its individual plant components were observed to vary from 0.1-100µg/ml.

Conclusion: In conclusion, this study showed that both ethanolic and aqueous extract of Triphala has potent antibacterial action against the wide variety of bacterial isolates from the HIV infected patients.