The Plant, Costus afer Ker Gawl. belongs to the family of Costaceae and has\nvarious uses where they exist. Their use in folk medicine and phytomedicine is\nin the treatment and management of variety of human ailment, like diabetes\nmellitus, abdominal problems etc. The search for new antidiabetic therapies\nhas become increasingly urgent due to the development of adverse effects and\nresistance by the chemically synthesized drugs on one hand and effectiveness\nwith low cost of the plant materials on the other hand. The investigations carried\nout is to determine the long term effects of Costus afer leaf methanol extract,\nsnail slime and the combined Costus afer and snail slime extracts on\nblood glucose levels of alloxan induced diabetic Swiss albino rats treated orally\nfor 21 days on graded dose of (100 mg/kg and 300 mg/kg). From the determination,\nthe snail slime showed positive effect on blood glucose lowering level\nbut less effective when compared with similar dose of the Costus afer leaf\nmethanol extract. The investigation indicated that there was 103 mg/dL and\n87 mg/dL blood glucose reduction for the low dose of Costus afer and Snail\nslime respectively while the standard hypoglycemic drug (Glibenclamide, 5\nmg/kg) used for comparison yielded a blood glucose level reduction of 103\nmg/dL. Similarly, the high dose used in the study gave a blood glucose reduction\nof 99 mg/dL and 95 mg/dL for Costus afer leaf methanol extract and Snail slime respectively. The results obtained when alloxan induced rats was treated\nwith C. afer leaf methanol extract, Snail slime extract, and combined C. afer\nand snail slime extracts was analysed using Statistix 8.0 American version. The\nresult showed a dose dependent fashion and the difference obtained from the\ncompared results was statistically significant at p < 0.05. This result supports\nthe views of other researchers that some herbal anti-diabetic remedies which\nreduce blood glucose levels were similar to those of synthetic oral hypoglycemic\ndrugs like metformin and sulfonylurea etc [1]. Still to that, medicinal and\npharmacological activities of medicinal plants are often attributed to the\npresence of the so called secondary plant metabolites. Hence this regenerative\ncapacity of snail slime and the fact that diabetes is characterized by damage of\nthe pancreatic beta cells, may give credit to the hypoglycaemic effect observed\nin Costus afer methanol leaf extract and snail slime for possible drug formulation\nfor anti-diabetic remedy. Our findings may approve snail slime which is\ninsoluble in both acid and alkaline medium, to act as a carrier of chemical and\nbiological nanoparticles for medical and pharmaceutical use.
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