Effect ofEriobotrya japonicaon Blood Glucose Levels of Normal and Alloxan-Diabetic Rabbits

Abstract

The alcoholic extract of the leaves of Eriobotryajaponica was administered in doses of 100, 150, and 200 mg/kg body weight to normal and alloxan-diabetic rabbits. The blood glucose levels were estimated before and 1,2,3, and 4 hours after the administration of the extract. The extract exerted a significant (P <0.05) hypoglycaemic effect in normal rabbits which was, however, short-lived. The hypoglycaemic effect was not significant (P> 0.1) in alloxan-treated rabbits. The doses used did not show acute toxicity or result in behavioural changes. From this study, it may be concluded that the extract acts by initiating the release of insulin from pancratic beta cells of normal rabbits.The present work has been undertaken with the aim to study the effect of the alcoholic extract of the leaves of Eriobotrya japonica on the blood glucose levels of normal and alloxantreated, diabetic male rabbits. Acute toxicity and behavioural changes were also studied to check the safety of these doses. Materials and MethodsExperiments were performed on male, adult rabbits of a local strain weighing 0.52-1.65 kg. They were fed on green vegetables and grains and allowed tap-water ad libitum. ChemicalsAlloxan monohydrate was supplied by B. D. H. Laboratories (Chemical Division), Poole, England; o-toluidine, glacial acetic acid, thiourea, and trichloroacetic acid were obtained from E. Merck, Darmstadt, West Germany; tolbutamide was provided by Hoechst, West Germany. Preparation of ExtractThe alcoholic extract was prepared by the method described by Noreen et al. (2). The fresh leaves obtained from local trees were dried in the shade and the completely dried leaves were powdered with an electric grinder. The powder was extracted for 8 hours with petroleum ether to give a brown residue. Continued extraction with 95 % alcohol gave a Downloaded by: National University of Singapore. Copyrighted material.

Eriobotrya japonica improves hyperlipidemia and reverses insulin resistance in high‐fat‐fed mice

“…Loquat, which consists of a large amount of pentacyclic triterpenes, would exert many biological activities. However, previous studies demonstrated that loquat had been used for the treatment of diabetes (Noreen et al, 1988). Triterpenoid constituents have been isolated from the leaves of this plant, and several of them were reported to have antitumor, antiviral and antiinfl ammatory properties (Shimizu et al, 1986(Shimizu et al, , 1996Liang et al, 1990;Tommasi et al, 1992;Nozato et al, 1994).…”

Determination of oleanolic acid, ursolic acid and amygdalin in the flower ofEriobotrya japonicaLindl. by HPLC

“…), which is indigenous in southeastern China, is a small evergreen tree of high medicinal value. Different organs of the loquat tree have been used for the treatment of cough (Ju et al, 2003), anti-inflammatory (Banno et al, 2005;Shimizu et al, 1986), tumors (Banno et al, 2005;Ito et al, 2002), liver problems (Nishioka et al, 2002), chronic bronchitis (Huang et al, 2006), nephropathy (Hamada et al, 2004) and diabetes (Noreen et al, 1988) and as a tissue factor inhibitor (Lee et al, 2004) and an NFkappaB inhibor (Kwon et al, 2000). The reported bioactive components of E. japonica include flavonoids (Louati et al, 2003), phenolics (Ding et al, 2001;Kwon et al, 2000;Jung et al, 1999), amygdalin (Zhuang, 2002), triterpenic acids (Liang et al, 1990;Taniguchi et al, 2002) and carotenoids (Godoy and Amaya, 1995).…”

Hypoglycaemic and hypolipidaemic action of alcohol extract of Tinospora cordifolia roots in chemical induced diabetes in rats

“…The plant stem has been considered as an indigenous source of medicines with antidiabetic (Gupta et al , 1967), immunomodulatory (Atal et al , 1986), hepatoprotective (Peer and Sharma, 1989) and antipyretic (Vedavathy and Rao, 1991) actions. The leaves of Tinospora cordifolia also possess antidiabetic action in alloxan diabetic rabbits (Noreen et al , 1992).…”