Streptozotocin-induced Antidiabetic Activity of Vitex negundo, Vitex trifolia and Vitex parviflora Combined Phytosomal Formulation

Multifactorial metabolic diseases, for instance diabetes develop several complications like hyperlipidemia, hepatic toxicity, immunodeficiency etc., Hence, instead of mono-drug therapy the management of the disease requires the combination of herbs. Marketed herbal drugs comprise of irrational combinations, which makes their quality control more difficult. Phytoconstituents, despite having excellent bioactivity in vitro demonstrate less or no in vivo actions due to their poor lipid solubility, resulting in high therapeutic dose regimen; phospholipids encapsulation can overcome this problem. Hence, present study was designed to develop a phospholipids encapsulated polyherbal antidiabetic formulation. The prepared Vitex negundo, Vitex trifolia and Vitex parviflora leaves extract and phytosomal formulation were studied for the acute oral toxicity and anti-diabetic activity against streptozotocin-induced rat’s model. The antidiabetic activity was compared with control group, the standard drug Glibenclamide (500 mcg/kg /po), leaves extracts and its phytosome formulation (100 and 200 mg/kg/po). Acute toxicity studies show no mortality and morbidity up to the dose 2000mg/kg of body weight. In this study, body weight, serum glucose levels, total cholesterol, triglyceride, HDL, LDL, and total protein were measured. The results showed that there was a significant decrease (P<0.05) in the serum glucose levels, cholesterol, total protein, LDL and triglyceride levels in diabetic rats when compared to the normal (control) rats and increase the level of HDL and body wt. Further the research proves that phytosome formulation is superior in controlling blood sugar than Vitex negundo, Vitex trifolia and Vitex parviflora leaves extract.