Effects of Aqueous Peat Extract on the Activity of Cyclooxygenase and Cyclooxygenase-1 and Cyclooxygenase-2 Isoforms

Purpose: The anti-inflammatory effects of peat in the treatment of rheumatic diseases are observed in clinical use for some time. So far it is not clear resulted from the peat research why a peat healing bath includes anti-inflammatory effects. The thermal effects itself cannot explain these effects. Material and methods: Therefore the effect of aqueous peat extract (WTE) on the activity of cyclooxygenase and its 2 isoforms COX-1 and COX-2 were analyzed and compared with Indometacin. Results: The ratio between the concentrations required to reach a suppression of 50 % of the activities of COX-1 and COX-2 isoforms amounts to 1.79. Discussion: For Indometacin the ratio is 0.17. So it is about 10 times less than that of WTE. Conclusions: The results of the present studies provide useful data to classify the aqueous peat extract as a specific COX-2 blockers.