Received: 05 th May-2013 Revised: 14 th June-2013 Accepted: 17 th June-2013 Research article INVESTIGATION ON THE ACUTE AND SUBACUTE TOXICITY OFALHAGI GRAECORUM IN EXPERIMENTAL ANIMALS Huda Gargum 1 , Abd El-Naser Al Zoki 2 ,Idris F.El-Barassi 3 ,Saleh Saeed Muftah 3 ,Faraj El Shaari 4 ,Masaud Jumma 4 , Adam Elzagheid 5 and Awad G.Abdellatif 1 . 1 Department of Pharmacology, 2 Department of Medicine, 3 Department of Anatomy and Histology, 4 Department of Biochemistry, 5 Department of Pathology Faculty of Medicine, University of Benghazi-Libya ABSTRACT: Little is known about the acute and subacute toxicity of Alhagi Graecorum (Camel Thorn) in mice. The aim of this study is to investigate the acute toxicity (LD50) and sub acute toxicity of camel thorn in mice. For determination of LD50, mice weighing 25-30 g were divided into nine groups each of 6 animals and received 130, 330, 660, 1300, 2600, 4200, 5000, 5900 and 6900 mg/kg orally of camel thorn water extract respectively. The sign and symptoms of toxicity and the number of died animals in each group were registered and the LD50 was calculated.Another group of Male albino mice weighed 25-30 g were divided into control and different treated group each of 6 mice and placed in the metabolism cages that allowed daily measurement of food and water consumption. The control received normal saline whereas the other groups received 130, 660, 1300 mg/kg (i.p, daily) of camel thorn extract (CTE)respectively, for two weeks.. The animals were weighed daily for any sign of reduction or gain of body weight. The food and water consumption were daily calculated. At the end of this experiment, the mice were killed and blood was collected and used for the determination of glucose and the serum creatinine,urea, aspartate, aminotransferase, (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels.The liver of the animals were removed,fixed in 10%formaline for histopathological investigation. The LD50 was equal to 5400mg/kg.Results of sub acute toxicity studies revealed that no significant weight reduction were observed in treated groups as compared to control, however the food consumption was significantly increased in the mice received 660mg/kg of CTE . Also the water consumption was significantly decreased in the animal receiving 1300mg/kg of CTE. Key words: Alhagigraecorum, camel thorn, acute toxicity, subacute toxicity INTRODUCTION Medicinal plants are used as sources of pharmaceuticals and as ingredients of traditional medicines and are of value in new drug discovery. (Phillipson,J.D.1994). Plants have always been a common source of medicaments, either in the form of traditional preparation or as a pure active principle (NR Farnsworth, NR etal 1985).Herbal medicine or phytomedicine is recognized as the most common form ofalternative medicine (Ogbonnia et al.,2011). According to The World Health Organization about 80 % of the world's population relies on traditional medicine for primary health care and more than 30% of the plant species have been used medicinally as alternative medicinal treatment especially in the developing countries(Kroll and Shaw, 2003; Ogbonnia et al., 2008). Herbal remedies are considered safer and less damaging to the human body than synthetic drugs (Alam et al., 2011). Although herbal supplements may be considered to be safe, some medicinal plants or herbs are known to be toxic at high doses and others may have potentially adverse effect after chronic use. Peoples are largely unaware that adverse health effects can be associated with the use of herbal supplements resulting from overdosing, contaminated formulations to the inherent toxicity of the herbs of choice (Hazel et al., 1999).Certain medicinal plants may produce harmful effect and several studies shown that many substances, including natural products, are potentially toxic and therefore should be used with care, respecting their toxicological risks (Veiga-Junior et al., 2005). In most cases, the adverse effects of commonly used plants are not well documented in the literature and their long-term use by humans is usually correlated with low toxicity. However, studies have shown that many foods and traditional plants used for their medicinal properties have mutagenic effects (Kassie et al, 1996, Elgorashi et al., 2003). International Journal of Applied Biology and Pharmaceutical Technology Page: 202 Available online at www.ijabpt.com