Effect of shilajit on the heart of Daphnia: A preliminary study

Abstract

Shilajit is a mineral-rich complex organic compound used in the traditional system of Ayurvedic medicine for treating hypertension and improving the cardiac function with many herbomineral preparations. However, very little experimental evidence is available about its effect on the cardiac function. We used Daphnia as a model organism for observing the effect of shilajit on its heart due to its myogenic properties and its response to number of cardioactive drugs that are known to affect human heart function. Genome of Daphnia shows the strongest homology with the human genome. These characteristics of Daphnia make it an ideal organism for biomedical research. Our results suggest that this complex organic compound lowers the heart beats as its concentration increases from 1.0 to 100 ppm. The beats come to near normal condition at 1000 ppm. Above 1000 ppm, the beats are very fast and impossible to count. These results indicate a negative chronotropic effect on the Daphnia heart at low concentrations and a positive chronotropic effect to arrhythmia and finally failure at increasing higher concentrations of shilajit.

Cardiovascular Performance Measurement in Water Fleas by Utilizing High-Speed Videography and ImageJ Software and Its Application for Pesticide Toxicity Assessment

“…It can display varying arrhythmia on exposure to pro-arrhythmia chemicals and responds to many cardio-active drugs known to affect human heart function [ 12 ]. Moreover, Daphnia’s heart has an intrinsic ability to contract, considered a myogenic heart, representing a model system used to understand the myogenic hearts of vertebrates [ 12 ]. Therefore, this enables the application of Daphnia as a surrogate model to investigate the effect of toxicants on its cardiovascular function.…”