Malvaviscus arboreus is used in traditional Mexican medicine to treat gastrointestinal diseases. Therefore, a mixture of Kaempferol-O-sambubioside and Kaempferol-O-sophoroside (MaSS) isolated from flowers of this species was tested as a preventive treatment on gastric lesions induced with ethanol in rats. MaSS was obtained by chromatographic methods and administered by oral pathway to male Sprague Dawley rats with ethanol-induced gastric lesions. Pretreatment with MaSS at doses of 30, 90, 120, and 180 mg/kg significantly prevents gastric lesions, inhibits the increment in relative stomach weight (%) in gastric IL-6, and also provokes an increment of IL-10 concentration and catalase activity. Finally, MaSS prevented edema in the mucosa and submucosa and diminished microscopic gastric lesions provoked by ethanol.
Keywords: Malvaviscus arboreus; catalase; cytokines; histologic analysis; kaempferol-3-O-sambubioside and kaempferol-3-O-sophoroside.