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.

Polyphenol-rich Indian ginger cultivars ameliorate GLUT4 activity in C2C12 cells, inhibit diabetes-related enzymes and LPS-induced inflammation: An in vitro study.

Diabetes is a chronic metabolic disorder that results in distorted insulin signaling and microvascular complications. Current antidiabetic drugs possess harmful long term side effects, necessitating the need for alternate or compliment therapy with lesser issues. Medicinal plants such as ginger have been reported to possess several beneficial activities including antidiabetic activity. The antidiabetic efficacy of microwave-assisted polyphenolic extracts of Indian ginger cultivars from Odisha (MPO) and Tamil Nadu (MPT) is reported here. MPT and MPO showed insulin stimulated glucose uptake of 1.74 ± 0.25 and 1.47 ± 0.15 fold at 6.25 µg/ml of concentrations in C2C12 cells respectively when compared to control. MPT possessed α-amylase, α-glucosidase inhibitory and anti-glycation properties. It also showed DPPH radical scavenging activity (7.69 ± 0.001%), inhibited LPS-induced nitric oxide production (1.06 ± 0.004 fold) than the latter and increased the GLUT4 protein expression by 1.4 fold. Major active compounds such as shogaol and gingerol derivatives, curcumene, zingiberone were identified through GC-ESI/MS analysis and D-pinitol (cyclitol) was identified through HPLC analysis in this variety. This is the first paper to report the presence of an antidiabetic compound, D-pinitol, in the ginger variety. Polyphenol rich, biologically potent ginger extracts can be a good food and nutraceutical supplement to address diabetes and related complications. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: Ginger is a native spice of South Asian Countries including India. Ginger extracts possess several medicinal properties such as anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic and antioxidant activities. It is used to treat nausea, vomiting and commonly used as a food flavouring agent and dietary food supplement. Our study shows the antidiabetic, anti-glycation and antioxidant efficacy of polyphenol rich Indian ginger cultivars grown in different geographical regions. Variations in the biological activities between the MPT and MPO ginger variety was observed. Different environmental conditions and their corresponding metabolite accumulation can be correlated with the better activity shown by MPT variety. It showed an increased GLUT4 expression even at a lower dose of 6.25 µg/ml. Ginger cultivar, especially MPT variety can be used as an adjuvant therapy for treating diabetes. Therefore, our study indicates that polyphenols rich ginger cultivar has major application in functional food product development.

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.