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Abstract

Background and Objective Hair loss or alopecia or baldness, a dermatological disorder, affects the personality of an individual, psychologically and sociologically. There is a flood of drugs claiming to be useful in the treatment of alopecia but none seems to be developed with a proper rational strategy. The study aims to investigate the hair growth promoting activity of herbal formulations prepared from fruits extract of Withania somnifera family- Solanaceae collected from two different locations from Rajasthan, WSR and from Uttarakhand WSU on healthy male Wistar rats. Materials and Methods The methanolic fruit extracts were sub fractionated into ethyl acetate, butanol and water fractions. All extracts were evaluated for their total phenolic content TPC, total flavonoid content TFC and in vitro anti-oxidant activity by two different methods. Aloe vera based herbal formulations were prepared from ethyl acetate fraction of the plant extracts. The prepared herbal formulations were subjected to primary skin irritation test and in vivo hair growth activity in healthy male Wistar rats. All the formulations were observed for hair growth initiation HGIT and hair growth completion time HCIT. The histological study of skin samples was also performed at the end of study to study hair growth at follicular level. Results Ethyl acetate fraction showed high TPC as well as TFC in both WSR and WSU in general. The extracts particularly ethyl acetate extract showed significant anti-oxidant activity in DPPH free radical scavenging activity and hydrogen peroxide scavenging assay. Primary skin irritation test showed that the prepared herbal formulations were non-irritating and non-toxic to the skin without any erythema or oedema at the end of 48 h of formulation application on denuded skin of rats. In vivo study showed early hair growth initiation and completion time in test group of animals as compared to the control group and the effect was comparable to that of standard group. The histology showed good growth of hair follicle in WSU as compared to WSR, control and standard with visible maximum anagenic population of hair. Conclusion It was concluded that WSU formulation showed good in vivo hair growth activity and was well supported by follicularhistological study.