A review on network pharmacology based phytotherapy in treating diabetes- An environmental perspective.

Diabetes has become common lifestyle disorder associated with obesity and cardiovascular diseases. Environmental factors like physical inactivity, polluted surroundings and unhealthy dieting also plays a vital role in diabetes pathogenesis. As the current anti-diabetic drugs possess unprecedented side effects, traditional herbal medicine can be used an alternative therapy. The paramount challenge with the herbal formulation usage is the lack of standardized procedure, entangled with little knowledge on drug safety and mechanism of drug action. Heavy metal contamination is a major environmental hazard where plants tend to accumulate toxic metals like nickel, chromium and lead through industrial and agricultural activities. It becomes inappropriate to use these plants for phytotherapy as it may affect the human health on long term consumption. This review discuss about the environmental risk factors related to diabetes and better implication of medicinal plants in anti-diabetic therapy using network pharmacology. It is an in silico analytical tool that helps to unravel the multi-targeted action of herbal formulations rich in secondary metabolites. Also, a special focus is attempted to pool the databases regarding the medicinal plants for diabetes and associated diseases, their bioactive compounds, possible diabetic targets, drug-target interaction and toxicology reports that may open an aisle in safer, effective and toxicity-free drug discovery.

Evaluation of the anti-rheumatic properties of thymol using carbon dots as nanocarriers on FCA induced arthritic rats.

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease that commences as inflammation and progressively destroys the articular joint. In this study, we assess the anti-rheumatic potential of the monoterpenoid class of thymol conjugated with Carbon Dots (CDs). Waste biomass in the form of dried rose petals was chosen as a precursor for the synthesis of CDs via a one-step hydrothermal bottom-up methodology. The prepared CDs exhibited absorption in the near-visible region, and unique excitation-dependent emission behaviour was confirmed from UV-Visible and fluorescence measurements. The surface morphology of CDs was confirmed by SEM and HR-TEM analysis to be quasi-spherical particles with an average size of ∼5-6 nm. The presence of various functional moieties (hydroxyl, carbonyl, and amino) was confirmed via FT-IR measurement. The graphitization of CDs was confirmed by the D and G bands for sp2 and sp3 hybridization, respectively, through Raman analysis. Esterification methodology was adopted to prepare the CDs-thymol conjugate and confirmed via FT-IR analysis. CDs play the role of a nanocarrier for thymol, an anti-arthritic agent. The bioactive compound of thymol showed potent anti-arthritic activity against RA targets through in silico docking studies. Further, the in vivo studies revealed that CDs-thymol conjugates (10 mg per kg body weight) showed a significant reduction in rat paw volume along with reduced levels of RF and CRP (2.23 ± 0.42 IU ml-1 and 16.96 ± 0.22 mg ml-1) when compared to the disease control rats. X-ray radiography and ultrasonic imaging revealed less bone destruction, joint derangement, and swelling in arthritis-induced Wistar rats. They could also potentially improve the Hb (14.14 ± 0.19), RBC (6.01 ± 0.11), PCV (6.01 ± 0.11) levels and elevate the status of antioxidant enzymes (GPx, SOD, MDA), and the activity was comparable to the standard drug, ibuprofen (10 mg kg-1), suggesting that the CDs-thymol conjugate at 10 mg kg-1 could act as a strong anti-arthritic agent. This work is evidence for the utilization of waste biomass as a value-added product such as a nanocarrier for biomedical applications.

Identification of polyphenolic contents, in vitro evaluation of antioxidant and antidiabetic potentials of a polyherbal formulation-Mehani.

Diabetes has become a global disease that needs an alternative drug treatment with lesser side effects. The present study was aimed to evaluate the antioxidant and antidiabetic activities of soxhlet and microwave assisted extraction of a polyherbal formulation-Mehani using aqueous, hydroalcoholic and hexane solvents. Preliminary investigation shows that the heavy metal contents were within the permissible limits. Comparative antioxidant studies showed that hydroalocoholic soxhlet (HAS) and microwave (HAM) extracts possessed highest activity as assessed through DPPH assay (93.8 ± 0.04%, 94.85 ± 0.04%), H2O2 assay (88.7 ± 0.9%, 87.2 ± 1.4%), reducing power assay (absorbance-1.61 ± 0.12, 2.08 ± 0.03) and nitric oxide scavenging activity (51.1 ± 0.9%, 56.5 ± 0.18%) at 500 µg/mL concentration. HAS and HAM also exhibited 80.3 ± 1.12% and 85.3 ± 1.86% of α-amylase inhibitory activity and 78.7 ± 0.15% and 80.0 ± 0.63% of glucosidase inhibitory activity. HPLC analysis in both the extracts reveals the presence of eight polyphenols with gallic acid being the predominant compound; these might be responsible for the highest activities.