Evaluation of hypoglycaemic activity of spine gourd powder (Momordica dioica Roxb.) formulated product (Khakra) in STZ induced diabetic rats

Abstract

Spine gourd is popular as an emerging underutilized crop due to its various health benefits and medicinal properties. Its powder is used to form a dish called Khakra. Khakra is one of the famous dishes made out of mat bean and wheat flour, a popular dish of western India mainly in Gujarat and Rajasthan, which is used as a snack or during breakfast. During the preparation of Khakra along with whole wheat flour and Bengal gram flour, 50 % of spine gourd powder was used and evaluated for hypoglycaemic activity in STZ induced diabetic wistar rats. The oral administration of Khakra of about 5 to 10 g/rat/day was given for diabetic induced and normal rats for about 21 days and observations were recorded at 0th, 7th, 14th and 21st day for serum glucose (mg/dL), serum cholesterol (mg/dL) and serum haemoglobin (mg/dL). The Group 6 (STZ + Laboratory diet + Spine gourd Khakraat 10g/ kg body weight/day) showed significant decrease (P&lt0.01) in serum glucose, serum cholesterol and significant increase (P&lt0.01) in serum haemoglobin which was found to be dose-dependent. In case of normal rats no significant decrease in serum glucose and serum cholesterol was observed.