Traditional plant treatments have provided the source of many important drugs. Obesity and Diabetes mellitus are debilitating and often life-threatening diseases with increasing incidence in both industrialised and rural populations throughout the world. New therapies are needed because of the inability of current therapies to control all of the pathological aspects of diabetes and obesity, and plant-based medicines are required as a result of the high cost and poor availability of current therapies for many rural populations, particularly in developing countries. A scientific investigation of traditional herbal remedies for obesity and diabetes may also provide valuable leads for the development of novel drug treatments. Studies carried out in db/db mice treated with Artemisia judaica extract (Chapter 3) support the anecdotal claims of its anti-diabetic activity. Though the Artemisia extract treatment did not result in normoglycaemia, any reduction in the blood glucose level was not due to an increased plasma insulin level. Further findings in the current study are that the anti-diabetic~ efficacy is more apparent during the first few days of treatment than later days. This may be due to the diabetogenic principle or some receptor or post-receptor down regulation. The lower concentrations of Artemisia extracts were active but the higher doses were ineffective. This may indicate the presence of multiple components, both pro and anti-diabetic. In isolated hepatocytes (Chapter 4) Artemisia extract reduced glucose production from lactate/pyruvate. Enzyme crossover studies showed that Artemisia extract might inhibit the PEPCK enzyme (phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase) activity, but there was no direct inhibition of the enzyme in vitro. Such inhibition could be potentially useful in a clinical setting in reducing hepatic glucose output and further work is required to fractionate the Artemisia extract to identify the active component.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:601356 |
| Date | January 2001 |
| Creators | Suhramaniam, Amuthakannan |
| Publisher | University of Buckingham |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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