Lemon (Citrus limon) Juice Has Antibacterial Potential against Diarrhea-Causing Pathogen

This purpose of this study was to determine the potential of lemon juice in inhibiting the growth of diarrhea-causing bacteria and analyze the optimum dose. The type of this study was a laboratory experiment. The variations of the lemon juice dose used in this study were 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900 and 1000 mg/ml by using Enterotoxin Escherichia coli (ETEC) as the test bacteria. This potential test used a well diffusion method with three repetitions for each dose. The results of this study indicated that lemon juice had the potential to inhibit pathogenic bacteria that cause diarrhea. In doses of 500 mg/ml to 80 mg/ml it inhibited the growth of test bacteria which were characterized by the formation of inhibition zones in a sequence of 10.56, 12.05, 13.02, and 14.58 mm with intermediate categories. Whereas in doses of 900 mg/ml and 1000 mg/ml it inhibited the growth of test bacteria with zone diameter area of 16.04 and 18.70 mm with sensitive categories. Kruskal Wallis test revealed a p-value of 0.000 < alpha = 0.05, which means that there was an influence among treatments. This result showed that the optimum dose of lemon juice in inhibiting diarrhea-causing pathogenic bacteria was 900 mg/ml.