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ABSTRACT
Justicia carnea is a medicinal plant, reported to have diverse pharmacological functions including blood boosting potentials. Diabetes mellitus is one of the most common endocrine disorders accompanied with various metabolic syndromes. The use of herbal medicines has always been an option to treat a great number of diseases such as cancer, diabetes and its complications. The aim of this study is to evaluate the hyperglycemia and hyperlipidemia effects of the methanol extract of Justicia carnea on the biochemical parameters of streptozotocin-induced diabetic male wistar rats. A total of Thirty fourty-eight(48) rats were used for this experiment. The animals were randomly distributed into cages and allowed to acclimatize for 2 weeks while been fed with growers marsh and water during the period of time. Acute toxicity test was done using lorke’s method with a total of twelve(12) rats and no mortality was observed. Thirty six(36) rats were assigned into 6 groups of 6 rats each. All rats except the normal control group were induced with diabetes by single intraperitoneal injection of 50mg/kg streptozotocin. For the treatment, Group 1(normal control) received no treatment, Group 2 diabetic rats were also left untreated, Group 3 diabetic rats were treated with a standard anti-diabetic drug known as Metformin, Groups 4, 5 and 6 received 100, 200 and 500mg/kg body weight of methanol extract of Justicia carnea respectively. These treatments were administered orally. At the end of the treatment period, which lasted for 21 days fasting the rats were sacrificed by anesthetizing each rat in a closed chamber containing drops of chloroform, and blood samples were collected by cardiac puncture for the evaluations of serum concentrations and biochemical parameters. There was a significant reduction in the fasting blood glucose levels of the animals treated with extracts when compared with the diabetic untreated rats and also a reduction in the serum levels of LDL, TG, Cholesterol with a non-significant increase in the serum levels of HDL in diabetic rats treated with 100mg/kg extract when compared with the untreated diabetic control group. The results showed that Justicia carnea besides its hypoglycemic action will be useful in reducing the complications and metabolic syndrome which often coexists in diabetes.
