Quite a number of diabetic patients use herbal medicines as supplements to their conventional medicines. It is common for these herbal supplements to contain two or more medicinal plants, regardless of potential toxicities or possible herb-drug interactions.
According to a study, the combination of two popular herbs used in traditional medicine to manage diabetes—Gongronema latifolium and Picralima nitida—work synergistically to guarantee a notable drop in blood sugar.
The combination of Gongronema latifolium leaves and Picralima nitida in dose ratios of 50:160, 100:90, and 150:30 mg/kg gave the best dose pairs with synergistic outcomes.
It was in the 2023 edition of the journal Biology, Medicine, & Natural Product Chemistry.
Gongronema latifolium is a popular leafy vegetable used in traditional cuisine, and it is commonly called “Utazi” in Nigeria. It is “Arokeke” or “Ewuro oyinbo” in Yoruba.
Picralima nitida is commonly known as “Akuamma” or “African Dream Herb.” However, it may not have widely recognised names in Yoruba, Igbo, or Hausa languages since it’s not native to West Africa.
In traditional medicine, Gongronema latifolium and Picralima nitida are both used to treat and control many conditions, such as malaria, abscesses, hepatitis, pneumonia, diabetes, and hypertension.
Extracts from P. nitida and G. latifolium have been demonstrated to assist enhance the body’s blood sugar regulation, which results in better diabetes control. It accomplishes this by boosting the liver’s absorption of glucose.
However, no previous report has considered the combined effect of both plants, a common practice in traditional medicine.
Researchers have confirmed that a wide range of medicinal plants lowers blood sugar effectively. But common practice in traditional medicine is to combine more than two herbs in the treatment of different ailments.
However, the benefit of combining herbs is not simply due to the herbs but also knowing the amounts of each to be in the recipe to ensure the best results.
The prevalence of type 2 diabetes has been increasing in the last decade due to an increase in the various identified risk factors, provoked by urbanisation and the resultant lifestyle changes.
However, maintaining blood sugar levels within a normal range is the primary therapeutic objective in the management of type-2 diabetes, since this helps to both alleviate symptoms and avert consequences from the disease.
In this study, the effects of varying dosages of extracts from the seeds of Picralima nitida and Gongronema latifolium on the glucose tolerance of Wistar albino mice were examined.
The interactions of several ratio combinations of G. latifolium and P. nitida extracts were ascertained by using a dose-effect-based technique.
Then, for G. latifolium, greater doses of 1600, 2000, and 5000 mg/kg and 300, 500, and 800 mg/kg for P. nitida were given to the animals. After treatment, they were monitored for a day to look for symptoms of toxicity and mortality.
The study, according to the researchers, validates the reasoning behind the combined use of P. nitida seeds and G. latifolium leaves in traditional medicine, as well as the known benefits of better glucose tolerance.
Furthermore, they reported that the optimal dose combinations with synergistic outcomes were obtained by mixing the extracts of G. latifolium and P. nitida in dose ratios of 50:160, 100:90, and 150:30 mg/kg.
Nigerian traditional healers make a variety of blood-glucose-lowering concoctions from leafy green vegetables. Such recipes consistently call for three plants: Scent leaf, Utazi leaf, and Bitter Leaf.
Ananas comosus (pineapple), Carica papaya (pawpaw), Citrus aurantium (bitter orange), Irvingia gabonensis (African mango), Sarcocephalus latifolius (African peach), Solanum aethiopicum (garden egg), Sorghum bicolor (Sorghum), Tamarindus indica (Tamarind tree), and Telfaria occidentalis (fluted pumpkin or Ugwu) are some of the other herbal medicines that are also utilised.
Previously, researchers in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology corroborated that a decoction containing bitter leaf, utazi leaf, and scent leaf in equal proportions was a blood sugar-lowering recipe.
Researchers discovered that, when tested on people, the combination of the three vegetable decoctions outperformed any single decoction or blends of only two.
After being selected, twenty-seven participants were given 150 mL of water, decoctions of bitter, utazi, and fragrance leaves, or combinations of the decoctions, to drink 45 minutes before a two-hour oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT).
Understanding how the body processes glucose can be gained through the oral glucose tolerance test. Increased blood sugar during specific test intervals may be a sign of diabetes or poor glucose tolerance.
When compared to baseline, the decoction dramatically lowered the blood glucose concentrations at 90 and 120 minutes. Additionally, none of the subjects had any trouble adhering to the study procedure, and none of them reported experiencing any negative effects from the decoctions during or after the study sessions.
They state that “the combination of the three vegetable decoctions was shown to be more active than any one of the three decoctions alone, or blends of only two. This is an example of positive synergism and supports the use of these plants in ethnopharmacological blood glucose-lowering recipes.”
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