## 4 Discussion  
Even though Summer Savory (_Satureja hottensis_) has been listed for many years as a medicinal herb and is a well-known herb in the food and culinary industry, scientific-based literature evaluating the potential beneficial effects of Summer Savory in health is surprisingly scarce, especially when compared to other aromatic herbs and even more obvious when particularizing for the study of the aerial parts as opposed to considerably more information regarding essential oil properties [1]. However, some studies, mainly from Mediterranean region countries in which Summer Savory is used commonly, have attributed antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antidiabetic, and antitumor effects to both seed (essential oil) and aerial parts extract of Summer Savory [47, 48]. One of the few studies focusing on an alcoholic extract of the aerial parts of Summer Savory was a study from [PERSON] et al. in 2018 that evaluated the beneficial effects of administration of a methanolic extract of the aerial parts of Summer Savory in a cisplatin-induced model of oxidative kidney, liver, and testicular [18]. Injury was induced by injection of cisplatin (7.5 mg/kg, sigle dose i.p.) to wistar rats and Summer Savory extract was administered orally (doses of 50, 100, and 200 mg/kg/day for 10 days). Extract's administration ameliorated tissue morphology, impaired the rise in serum level of liver, renal and testes injury markers and reduced tissue oxidative stress with reduction of apoptosis evidenced by an increased Bcl-2/Bax ratio. In this study, and similarly to the situation described in our study, the principle constituent of the phenolic extract identified was rosmarinic acid. In fact, several studies report high rosmarinic acid content in aromatic plants from the _Lamiaceae_ family [49, 50, 51], and, although _Satureja hottensis_ is not one of family members with higher concentration of rosmarinic acid, it normally has concentrations higher than plants, such as _Rosmarinus officinalis_ and _Lavandula angustifolia_[52]. When compared to our study with spearmint extract, results from our present study shows that not only the concentration of rosmarinic acid is equivalent (1.0 mg/mL vs. 1.4 mg/mL, for Summer Savory and spearmint extracts, respectively) but also the antioxidant capacities, as well [15]. Given that antioxidant capacity is usually appointed as a main responsible for an alti-inflammatory activity, one of our previous work aimed to prove that anti-inflammatory activity is often independent of the anti-oxidant effect. In a study of the anti-inflammatory effect of an extract of _Rosmarinus officinalis_ and of rosmarinic acid, our team proved that the anti-inflammatory effect of both was equivalent for the same dose of rosmarinic acid, although the anti-oxidant activity was much higher for the extract [43]. Therefore, in the present work, characterization of the anti-oxidant effect of the extract was important  
Figure 10: Evaluation of COX-2 and iNOS activation in the TNBS colitis model reveals that specimens from TNBS colitis group exhibits severe expression of COX-2 and iNOS (brown staining, arrow), while specimens from the animals treated with Summer Savory extract exhibited no expression of COX-2 and iNOS. Sham Group (\(n=6\)); EtOH Group (\(n=6\)); TNBS + EtOH Group (\(n=10\)); TNBS + Summer Savory Group (\(n=10\)). Original magnification \(\times 100\). Scale bar equals 50 \(\upmu\)m.  
to show anti-oxidant equivalence with other aromatic plants [14; 15], but evaluation of its specific effect on inflammatory models was necessary to assess the anti-inflammatory activity. Therefore, in the present work, in order to do a preliminary evaluation of the anti-inflammatory effect of the Summer Savory extract, we evaluated a single-dose effect of Summer Savory oral administration in an acute model of paw edema.