Research Journal of Pharmacy and Technology

Mentha pulegium is a species of flowering plant in the family Lamiaceae native to Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Crushed pennyroyal leaves exhibit a very strong fragrance similar to spearmint. A large number of the recipes in the Roman cookbook of Apicius call for the use of pennyroyal, often along with such herbs as lovage, oregano and coriander. Pennyroyal is used to make herbal teas, which, although not proven to be dangerous to healthy adults in small doses, is not recommended, due to its known toxicity to the liver. Consumption can be fatal to infants and children. Pennyroyal leaves, both fresh and dried, are especially noted for repelling insects. Pennyroyal essential oil should never be taken internally because it is highly toxic; even in small doses, consumption of the oil can result in death. Antioxidative activities of the essential oil, methanol and water extracts of Iranian pennyroyal in vegetable oil during storage were evaluated. The TLC chromatogram of the two extracts showed differences in the number of separated compounds of extracts. HPLC results indicated that the fraction collected with washing buffer (pH = 6) had highest antioxidant activity.