Anti-Fungal Activity of Commercially Available Extracts of Garlic (Allium sativum), Turmeric (Curcuma longa), Amla (Emblica officinalis): An in vitro Study

Background and Purpose: Many innovations are constantly emerging with the advances in modern medicine and also it is occurring in various traditional medicines as they are considered to be safe and economical in current increasing health care financial burden. Due to emerging of MDR (multiple drug resistance) microorganisms and reduce efficacy of Modern medicines researchers and clinicians are required to revisit the traditional and alternative medicines. Material and Method: Extracts of garlic (Allium sativum), turmeric (Curcuma longa), amla (Emblica officinalis) and honey were prepared at concentration of 1mg/mL, 2mg/mL, 3mg/mL and were tested on different cancdidal species like Candida Albicans, Candida tropicalis, Candida glabrata,Candida Parapsilosis and Candida Krusei and on Fluconazole as a positive control. Disc Diffusion Test for antifungal assay was performed. Results: The anti-fungal effect was maximum at 3mg/mL concentration for all the herbal extracts. Zone of inhibition for fluconazole, was highest (35.00 +/- 1.73). Among herbal extracts zone of inhibition for garlic was maximum (16.67 +/- 0.88), followed by turmeric (12.67 +/- 1.20), honey (11.00 +/- 0.58 ), amla (9.33 +/- 0.67 ). Similarly for each dose, comparing the mean zone of inhibition between antifungal groups Tukey test showed significantly (p<0.001) different and lower zone of inhibition in herbal extracts (garlic, turmeric, honey and amla) as compared to fluconazole at all the doses. Conclusion: Among all the extracts garlic showed maximum efficiency. Also, the results obtained for herbal extracts showed that they were less efficient compared to fluconazole which was used as positive control.