It is well documented that intake of highly concentrated dose of ethanol has injurious effect on gastric mucosa. Many mechanisms have been implicated in the pathogenesis of gastric lesions induced by ethanol. Some drugs and aqueous extract of medicinal plants were used in the current study to explore their effectiveness and whether it is helpful to reduce the injurious effect of ethanol and to produce possible gastric cytoprotective action. The parameters of gastric mucosal lesion were measured before and after administration of Esomeprazole, aqueous extracts of cabbage, black pepper, slippery elm, ginger and flax , In addition to measurement of the serum levels of zinc, copper, potassium and sodium ; and the possibility of having any changes in their values after administration of ethanol. The obtained results can be summarized as the following: • Ethanol was found highly effective to induce gastric lesion in ratio of 100% when administered orally. This effect was associated with significant rise of serum level of copper but with no significant changes in serum levels of zinc, potassium and sodium. • Esomeprazole is one of proton pump inhibitors (0.04 mg/kg) was given orally 1 hour before ethanol administration produced highly significant reduction in gastric lesion parameters with preventive index equal to 94.7% and suggestive a possible cytoprotective property of the drug. This effect was accompanied with non significant changes in serum levels of zinc, copper, potassium and sodium. • The aqueous extracts of cabbage and slippery elm, 1.5 ml was given orally for each, produced highly significant reduction in gastric lesion parameters with preventive index equal to 91.8% and 90% respectively. This effect was associated with significant decrease in the serum levels of copper and zinc but with no significant changes in potassium and sodium levels.
• The aqueous extracts of black pepper, ginger and flax, 1.5 ml was given orally for each, produced significant decrease in gastric lesion parameters with preventive index equal to 47.7%, 22.7% and 17.2% respectively. These effects were associated with no significant changes in serum levels of zinc, copper, potassium and sodium. The obtained results in this study indicated that all medicinal plants that used have beneficial cytoprotective effect on the gastric mucosa with the possibility of using these plants in clinical trials as gastric cytoprotective remedy for patients with gastric ulcer.