Abstract:
Diabetes Mellitus is affecting hundreds of millions of people worldwide and the
numbers are continuously increasing. The attention of disease management is turning
to natural products due to various complications of the synthetic drugs used. Various
chemical components present in plants are effective in controlling this disease. The
plants Mangifera indica and Aegle marmelos are reported to be rich in bioactive
components. This study was carried out to determine the anti-diabetic effects of the
methanol extracts of mature leaves of these two plants using two in vitro methods i.e.
the ‘glucose uptake capacity by yeast cells (GUC)’ and the ‘glucose adsorption assay
(GAA)’. The effect of different concentrations of the plant extract (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5
mg/ml) on glucose uptake by yeast cells in different initial concentrations of glucose
(50, 100, 150, and 200 mg/dL) was determined after incubating with a 10 % v/v of yeast
cell suspension for 60 minutes at 37 C. The same procedure was followed for the
standard diabetes drug Metformin (positive control). The glucose adsorption capacity
was determined by incubating one gram of plant crude in 100 ml solutions of different
glucose concentrations (50, 100, 150, and 200 mg/dL) for six hours at 37 °C. M. indica
induced 85 % glucose uptake which was 13 % higher than Metformin while A.
marmelos induced a 45 % glucose uptake which was 40 % less than Metformin. The
glucose adsorption by M. indica was 18% in the highest glucose concentration while it
was only 3.8 % by A. marmelos. Thus, M. indica apparently possesses a very high
antidiabetic potential by the combined effect of both glucose uptake and adsorption
while A. marmelos possesses a considerable level of antidiabetic effect mainly through
glucose uptake. In addition, the glucose uptake was reduced by higher concentrations
of Metformin probably due to some negative physiological impact on yeast. Such an
effect was not shown by plant extracts indicating low or lack of negative impacts by
natural products. Further studies may pave ways for effective use of both these plants
in efficient management of diabetes.
