Long lasting preventive effects of piperlongumine and a Piper longum extract against stress triggered pathologies in mice.

AIM: To compare doxycycline (DOX) such as oral efficacies of piperlongumine (PL) and a Piper longum fruits extract (PLE) as stress resistance inducers. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Efficacies of oral pretreatments with 5 mg/kg PL or PLE or of 50 mg/kg DOX for 10 consecutive days against stress resistance were compared. Mice in treated groups were subjected to a stress induced hyperthermia on the 1(st), 5(th), 7(th), and 10(th)day. Treated mice were then subjected to tail suspension test on the 11(th)day. Alteration in body weights, core temperatures, and gastric ulcers triggered by occasional exposures to foot shocks were determined. RESULTS: DOX like long-lasting protective effects of PL and PLE against gradual alterations in body weights, basal temperatures and transient hyperthermic responses triggered by foot shocks during the post-treatment days were observed. Altered responses of stressed mice in tail suspension test observed 1 day after the last foot-shock exposures and gastric ulcers and other pathologies quantified 1 day after the test were also suppressed in PL or PLE or DOX pretreated groups. CONCLUSION: PL and crude PLE are DOX like long-acting desensitizers of stress triggered co-morbidities. Reported observations add further experimental evidences justifying traditionally known medicinal uses of P. longum and other plants of the Piperaceae family, and reveal that PL is also another very long acting and orally active inducer of stress resistance. Efforts to confirm stress preventive potentials of low dose plant-derived products enriched in PL or piperine like amide alkaloids in volunteers and patients can be warranted.