The whole plant of bhringaraj (Eclipta alba) was dried and pulverized. The phytoconstituents of the pulverized plant material were extracted separately with two different solvents namely petroleum ether (hot percolation) and methanol (cold maceration) to carry out a comparative extraction efficiency of the above two solvents. β-sitosterol reported to have antiandrogenic, anticancer, antiinflammatory, antiprostatitic, antitumor, etc. activity, was selected as the active biomarker for

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... on of the aforementioned plant material. HPTLC was carried out for quantification of the biomarker and obtained data was compared with HPLC data. Petroleum ether was found to be an effective extracting solvent for β sitosterol from E. alba as compared to methanol. The percentage content of β-sitosterol in E. alba methanolic and petroleum ether extract was found to be 0.10% and 4.65% w/w respectively by HPTLC whereas the percentage content of β-sitosterol in Eclipta alba petroleum ether extract was found to be 4.67 % w/w by HPLC. AAS data revealed the presence of the metals (ppm ± SEM) are within safety limits, copper (1.151 ± 0.031), chromium (0.528 ± 0.012), cadmium (0.021 ± 0.035), lead (0.860 ± 0.009), arsenic (0.081 ± 0.007), mercury (0.036 ± 0.010).