An inventory of the ethnobotanicals used as anti-diabetic by a rural community of Dhemaji district of Assam, Northeast India.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Traditional remedies used for treating diabetic ailments are very important in the primary health care of the people living in rural Dhemaji district of Assam, north-east India. Novel information gathered from the current survey is important in preserving folk indigenous knowledge. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Interviews were conducted amongst 80 households comprising of 240 individuals using semi-structured questionnaires. The focus was on plants used in treating diabetes mellitus. RESULTS: The current survey documented 21 plant species (20 families) which are reportedly used to treat diabetes mellitus by the rural people in the study area. To the best of our knowledge, Amomum linguiforme, Cinnamomum impressinervium, Colocasia esculenta, Dillenia indica, Euphorbia ligularia, Garcinia pedunculata, Solanum indicum, Sterculia villosa and Tabernaemontana divaricata are recorded for the first time based on globally published literature as medicinal plants used for treating diabetes mellitus and related symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: The wide variety of plants that are used to treat diabetes mellitus in this area supports the traditional value that medicinal plants have in the primary health care system of the rural people of Dhemaji district of Assam. The finding of new plant uses in the current study reveals the importance of the documentation of such ethnobotanical knowledge.

Enhancement of field stability and utility of future biologicals through prior accelerated degradation testing.

The scepticism about the future utility of newer biologicals towards reducing disease morbidity or mortality at the public health or application level can be regarded as appropriate. The financial or research inputs into producing anti-idiotypic, subunit, cloned or genetically engineered products may not be transcribed to the field level due to political or economic impediments and the putative breakdown of any specific activity at the application level, as with the conventional immunobiologicals, may also negate the utility of the newer products. Such an eventuality should be overcome by planning, during the pre-licensure phase, appropriate accelerated degradation tests on newer biologicals.