Background: Cherry leaves are known to have content to reduce cholesterol
levels in the blood, but the optimal dose not available. Simvastatin is one of many
drugs to reduce total cholesterol levels.. Many people who often combine
conventional medicine and herbs in therapy to reduce cholesterol levels. This
study aims to determine the effectiveness of simvastatin combination therapy and
cherry leaf extract in lowering cholesterol levels in rats which fed high cholesterol
compared with single simvastatin and single cherry leaf extract, and also to find
the optimum dose of cherry leaf extract. Method: This study used 28 male Wistar
strain rats divided into 7 groups. Test animals were fed high cholesterol for 28
days except the normal control group. Provision of test preparations carried out
for 20 days. The extract was divided into 3 doses, the doses is 5, 10 and 20%.
Measurement of total cholesterol levels using the CHOD-PAP reagent kit using a
UV-Visible spectrophotometer. Data if normally distributed will be analyzed
using the Annova One Way statistical analysis, if the data is not normally
distributed then the non-parametric statistical test Kruskal Wallis test is used.
Results: The results showed that administration of cherry leaf extract at a dose of
20% was the optimum dose to reduce total cholesterol levels. Giving a
combination of the two can reduce total cholesterol levels in mice insignificantly
(p> 0.05) when compared with positive controls. Conclusion: Cherry leaves
extract with a concentration of 20% is the optimum concentration to reduce total
cholesterol levels by the mechanism of reducing the formation of HMG-CoA
reductase enzymes. Giving a combination of simvastatin and cherry leaf extract
with a concentration of 20% can reduce the total cholesterol level is not
significantly better than giving of a single simvastatin