Peppermint Oil Research Paper

Results and Discussion
1- Chemical composition of peppermint and parsley leaves oils
As shown in Table 1, the major components of peppermint essential oil were menthol (35.6 %), and menthone (25.9 %). In addition, we also found some other components of peppermint essential oil, including 1,8-Cineol, menthylacetate, caryophyllene. Many articles reported menthol as the main component of peppermint oil (Iscan et al., 2002; Behnam et al., 2005; Soković et al., 2009; Hussain et al., 2010) and menthone and limonene were the second component of peppermint oil from the Iscan et al., (2002) and Hussain et al., (Hussain et al., 2010) studies, respectively, but one report showed ß-terpinene, piperitone oxide as the main components of peppermint oil (Yadegarinia et al., 2006). Therefore menthol is not always the primary component of peppermint oil. The chemical composition of peppermint oil from this study is comparable to Iscan et al., (2002). Menthol and menthone

(2011), who reported statistically significant increase in plasma activities of ALT, AST, ALP, and GGT in CCl4 induced animals. It was observed in this study that the feeding of rats with peppermint and parsley leaves oils was able to reduce and sometimes completely remove the toxic effect of CCl4. Some parameters including ALT and AST were significantly decreased (p< 0.05) in the group injected and fed with CCl4 and peppermint or parsley leaves oils compared with CCl4 group. Frank et al., (2012) reported that CCl4 produces oxidative damages and increased AST, ALT, ALP, total bilirubin levels and decrease total protein. Therefore, the reduction in serum levels of AST, ALT, ALP by treatment peppermint and parsley leaves oils is an indication of stabilization of plasma membrane as well as repair of hepatic tissue damage caused by CCl4. This effect shows that serum levels of transaminases return to normal with the healing of hepatocytes. (Ozturk et al.,