Conventional medicines have been used to treat ringworm of the scalp. However, over time, the efficacy of these medicines has proven to be ineffective or have severe side effects. Now, researchers found the combination of garlic and ginger as potential sources of novel anti-ringworm drugs.
In a new study, researchers found garlic more active than ginger, but having synergistic effects on each other, underscoring their efficacies as potential sources of novel anti-ringworm drugs, especially when combined.
The combined extracts had better antifungal activities at the various dilutions of garlic and ginger extracts on Trichophyton species, one of the fungi species isolated from scalp scraping from children with ringworm, compared to the single extracts.
Scalp scraping samples were collected from village primary school children with ringworm of the scalp in Ebonyi State, Nigeria, while fresh garlic and ginger samples were purchased from Ogige Market in Nsukka, Enugu State, Nigeria.
The researchers in the South Asian Journal of Research in Microbiology checked for the antifungal activities of the extracts, the minimum inhibitory concentration, and the minimum fungicidal concentration.
The methanol extracts of both plants were found to be more effective than their aqueous extracts. However, the garlic extracts had better antifungal effects on the two isolates than the ginger extracts. The combined extracts had better antifungal activities at the various dilutions of the garlic and ginger extracts.
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Ringworm is treated with oral antifungal medications. Over time, the efficacy of these medications for the treatment of ringworm seems to be diminishing. Some of the most recently approved antifungal medications are made from natural compounds that fungi create.
Due to their excellent activity and far fewer adverse effects than synthetic medications, herbal formulations have always drawn a lot of interest. Resistance strains have emerged as a result of the widespread use of antifungal medicines, which have numerous side effects in terms of toxicity, efficacy, and cost.
Thus, it is necessary to create new antifungal medications that are less expensive, have fewer adverse effects, and have lower dose requirements.
Garlic is one of the plants with the strongest antifungal and antibacterial effects, and ginger has excellent antifungal qualities as well. In Balanga LGA, located in Gombe, a paste made from crushed garlic and olive oil has been used to treat fungal infections.
Moreover, researchers also claimed that things like oyster mushroom and lemon peel oil can also be added to ginger and garlic to make new antifungal medications that are less expensive and have fewer adverse effects.
Experts in a study claimed that ginger, lemon, and garlic essential oils depicted a comparable antifungal activity against fungi that cause ringworm.
In the African Journal of Pharmacy and Alternative Medicine, they declared that the combined essential oils formulation of ginger, lemon, and garlic showed the highest activity compared to single extracts.
Also, the combination of the three extracts acts in synergy against the fungi that cause ringworm. The rate of inhibition was directly proportional to the concentration of the extracts.
The study assessed the efficacy of three extracts (aqueous, ethanolic 70%, and methanolic 70%) of ginger and garlic against fungi isolated from the hair scrapings of 60 elementary school students with clinical signs of ringworm of the scalp in Balanga LGA, Gombe State, North-East Nigeria.
However, they declared that the extraction solvent had an impact on the garlic’s level of antifungal activity because methanol and ethanol are solvents that can dissolve organic compounds more effectively, releasing the active ingredient needed for antifungal activity.
Therefore, they claimed that the herbal extracts inhibited fungi that cause ringworm as good as ketoconazole, a conventional antifungal treatment and hence these extracts are a promising source of drugs for the treatment of ringworm.
They, however, recommended that more studies of this kind should be done using other synthetic antifungal drugs on the market other than ketoconazole.
They added, “Ginger, lemon, and garlic are sources of molecules that act in synergy in controlling different forms of ringworm infection. They can be leveraged to support the Ministry of Health in achieving its universal healthcare goal.
“We also recommended that laboratory and clinical studies of these essential oils should be performed in order to better understand their antifungal activity and toxicity. Lastly, the formulated lotion of the three extracts should be tested against other fungal infections.”
Furthermore, in Biology, Medicine & Natural Product Chemistry, the mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus), garlic (Allium sativum), and ginger (Zingiber officinale) extracts contain phytochemicals with some antimicrobial activities.
The antimicrobial activities of mushroom and garlic extracts were highly effective against the bacterial pathogens studied. These disease-causing germs included Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, and Klebsiella pneumonia. However, the antimicrobial activity of the ginger extract was poor.
Plant materials locally used to treat ringworm infections include leaves of Vanda roxburgii (Grey orchid), African locust bean seeds, leaves of Sena alata (Asunwon oyinbo in Yoruba), leaves of Mitracarpus villosus (Tropical Girdle Pod or Irawo-Ile in Yoruba) and Gmelina arborea (Kashmir tree) fruits. It could be concluded that tropical plants hold great promise as potential sources of antifungal agents and are therefore recommendable as possible options in the search for newer antifungal agents.
