Combination of Phyllanthus amarus Schum. & Thonn. and Gymnema sylvestre R. Br. for treatment of diabetes and its long-term complications

Objectives. The amount of patients with diabetes is increasing, and such patients experience several long-term complications. Therefore, finding a method to treat the disease and its complications is an urgent issue worldwide. In Vietnam, Phyllanthus amarus Schum. & Thonn. (PA) and Gymnema sylvestre R. Br. (GS) are common herbs used in traditional therapy including diabetes treatment. This study aimed to combine PA and GS to extend their bioactivities in antidiabetes, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory treatments.
Methods. Here, PA and GS powders were mixed at different ratios for extraction. Ethanolic extract was used to detect bioactive compounds, bioactivities, and appropriate ratios of the mixtures.
Results. The optimal ratio for the PA and GS combination was 2 : 1 (g/g). The ethanolic extraction of the 2 : 1 sample at 50°C over two hours with a solid/liquid ratio of 1 : 10 achieved a high yield of 14.37%. This sample exhibited good α-glucosidase inhibition activity with a half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) of 9.74 µg/mL, antioxidant activity with an IC50 of 29.87 µg/mL, and anti-inflammatory activity with an IC15 of 400 µg/mL.
Conclusions. The study confirmed that combining PA and GS can have high α-glucosidase inhibition as well as antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects.

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