Despite considerable progress in the treatment of the diabetes with synthetic drugs, the search for effective, safe and inexpensive drugs is ongoing from herbs, since they offer a wide range of antidiabetic agents. Antidiabetic studies using in silico, in vitro and in vivo aspect of different medicinal plant products (Trigonella foenum-graecum, seeds; Syzygium cumini, seeds; Salvadora persica, leaves and Terminalia chebula, seeds) were reviewed. The objective of the study was to compare these medicinal plants for their hypoglycemic effect and phytochemical composition in order to find out most feasible and efficient antidiabetic agent. In this regard, the article is going to look at the phytochemical profile and the antihyperglycaemic properties and toxicity studies of the various fractions isolated from these plants. Studies claimed that all crude as well as partially purified fractions showed an antidiabetic effect hence are potent antidiabetic agents, but maximum effect observed in case of fraction isolated from Syzygium cumini and Salvadora persica.

Background:Syzygium cumini, Terminalia chebula, Trigonella foenum graecum and Salvadora persica are medicinally important plants well known for their pharmacological activities.Aim:The aim of this study is to compare the antidiabetic potential of partially purified bioactive fractions isolated from four targeted medicinal plants in diabetic rats.Methods:Alloxan was administered (125 mg/kg, IP) in albino Wistar rats to produce diabetes. The partially purified bioactive fractions, namely S. cumini tannin fraction (ScTF), T. foenum graecum (Fenugreek) saponin fraction (FgSF), T. chebula flavonoid fraction (TcFF) and S. persica flavonoid fraction (SpFF), were administered to diabetic rats with the dose of 100 mg/kg, per oral (PO) and the effect of the fractions on body weight, liver glycogen and serum glucose were studied up to 15 days.Results:The results have indicated that diabetic rats treated with fractions showed a statistically significant (P < 0.05) decrease in serum glucose and increase in body weight and liver glycogen. Among ScTF, FgSF, TcFF and SpFF possesse better hypoglycemic activity in all models.Conclusion:The present investigation reveals that flavonoid isolated from S. persica is useful in the management of diabetes mellitus because of ability to regulate glucose level and reduce related complications.

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India ranks high for prevalence of diabetes and the treatment of diabetes without any side effects is still challenging. Though herbal remedies help reduce the side effect, proper standardization of phytochemical which prove as a bioactive compound, its proper dose and clinical trials are lacking. In our investigation, we studied the binding mechanism of the secondary metabolites of Syzygium cumini, their in vitro antidiabetic activity and the number of phytochemicals present. In silico study revealed that ellagic acid has a potential to modulate the carbohydrate metabolizing enzyme activity showing higher affinity for the enzymes with much lesser binding energy, -4.73 kcal/mol for alpha amylase, -4.87 kcal/mol for beta-glucosidase, -4.79 kcal/mol for glycogen synthase kinase, -4.18 kcal/mol for glucokinase and -4.49 kcal/mol for alpha-glucosidase. In vitro-Alpha amylase inhibitory activity assay showed that ethanol extract has the highest value of percent inhibition (73.33%) as compared to standard drug Acarbose (65.99%). Finally, TLC analysis cleared that ethanol extract contains five compounds one of which may be a bioactive compound, ellagic acid. Further purification and characterization of the ellagic acid is needed.

Diabetes mellitus is the fifth deadliest disease in the developing countries. Even with all the research and new drugs available, combating diabetes is still challenging. There are successes in finding new cost effective drugs without side effects, even if not perfect. In our investigation we studied binding mechanism of secondary metabolite of T. chebula in silico. It was observed that three compounds out of 16 have a higher binding affinity for the target proteins. Ellagic acid showed highest binding affinity with alpha amylase, beta glucosidase and alpha glucosidase with lesser binding energies -4.5kcal/mol, -5.36kcal/mol and -4.48kcal/mol respectively. Arjungenin has lesser binding energy of 4.77 kcal/mol with glucokinase while luteoline has binding energy of -7.25kcal/mol for enzyme glycogen synthase kinase. These entire compounds interacted with non-covalent interaction. Petroleum ether extract showed the significant alpha amylase inhibitory activity i.e. 51.22% as compared to standard drug (65.99%).TLC analysis revealed the presence of total 9 compounds in different plant extracts one of them might be a lead compound which could be further exploited for the development of novel safer and potent antidiabetic drug.