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Amongst the major causes of deaths worldwide today, is diabetes mellitus. This ailment is frequently associated with a person's eating habits and heredity, and its recurrence rate is becoming seriously alarming. There are several anti-diabetic or hypoglycemic medications available for the treatment of the condition, but they are frequently expensive, out of reach for the poor, and frequently have unfavorable side effects. This highlights the need for scientific research to identify a different, safe, and efficient herbal drug that will be widely available, simple to use, and reasonably affordable for the treatment of the condition. In this study, the effects of Momordica balsamina aqueous methanolic extracts were investigated on albino rats induced with diabetes using alloxan. Albino rats weighing 150g and above and kept in the same condition with unrestricted access to food and water were used throughout the experiment. A solution of alloxan monohydrate was made by dissolving 0.9 mg in 6 mL of distilled water and the rats were given a single intraperitoneal injection of alloxan monohydrate (150 mg/kg). The blood glucose level of the rats was assessed both before and after alloxan diabetes induction and after treated with 50, 100 and 200 mg/kg of the aqueous methanolic extract of M. balsamina using a glucometer. The data obtained were subjected to statistical analysis at P-value (P 0.05 and 0.01) using Pearson correlation analysis. The work conducted on albino rats indicated a substantial reduction in blood glucose levels after administering doses of 200 mg/kg body weight of M. balsamin aqueous methanolic extract. This effect was particularly notable between the third and thirty third days of the research period where a decreased in blood glucose level from 28.5±0.8 to 10.8±0.2, 8.3±1.1, 8.0±0.0, and 7.2±0.0 (mmol/L) in the third, sixth, ninth and twelfths days were observed respective, which also increased to 8.8±1.1 and 9.3±1.3 (mmol/L) in the fifteenth and eighteenth day, but continue decreasing throughout until become 7.4±1.5 (mmol/L) at thirty third day. It is worth mentioning that the test animals remained healthy and exhibited normal activity throughout the study. Furthermore, the LD50 test detected no indications of toxicity, suggesting the extract's relative safety. These findings strongly suggest that M. balsamina contains phytochemicals with potent anti-diabetic properties.
Danyaya et al. (Thu,) studied this question.