Seventeen Cree anti-diabetic medicinal plant were investigated for their capacity to cause adverse effects when used as alternative or complementary medicine. Two aspects of safety were studied using their extracts: the ability to affect the contraction rate of neonatal rat cardiomyocytes in vitro to determine if the plants can influence the human heart rate, and the ability to interfere with drug metabolism by inhibiting the cytochrome P450 enzymes in vitro. The results suggest that several Cree plants may cause a harmful effect through different mechanisms. The extracts ofW2, W4, W5, and W9 did not affect the contraction rate of cardiomyocytes; however W9 extract was cardiotoxic at 10 mug/mL. Extracts of AD01, AD07, W2, and W4 had moderate or strong inhibitory potency towards the CYP isoforms involved in metabolizing common anti-diabetic drugs. Furthermore, AD02 extract was identified as a possible CYP3A4 mechanism-based inhibitor. Overall, the results suggest that several of the plant species can cause adverse events when used by diabetic patients.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/28230 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Tam, Teresa |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 164 p. |
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