Exploration of Hypoglycemic, Analgesic, Antidiarrheal, and Antioxidant Properties of the Methanolic Extract of the Stems of Gymnema inodorum (Lour.) Decne.

Abstract

Gymnema inodorum (Lour.) Decne. (GI) is a climbing plant used as food. There are several different medicinal uses for this plant. Different fractions obtained from the GI stem’s methanolic extract were subjected to pharmacological assays in this study. In the hypoglycemic activity assay, the chloroform fraction at both 200 mg/kg and 400 mg/kg body weight doses demonstrated potent hypoglycemic properties after 60, 90, and 120 minutes, whereas the ethyl acetate fraction showed significant activity after 90 and 120 minutes at both doses. With tail flicking responses elongating by 112.92% (p<0.01), 150.53% (p<0.001), and 257.23% (p<0.001) after 30, 60, and 90 minutes, respectively, the chloroform fraction (400 mg/kg) demonstrated the most prominent central analgesic activity among the test samples in the tail flicking method. Similarly, the chloroform fraction (400 mg/kg body weight) revealed strong peripheral analgesic activity with a 52.18% (p<0.001) writhing inhibition value in the acetic acid-induced writhing inhibition method. All other fractions at both doses had considerable antidiarrheal activity, with the exception of the n-hexane fraction. The n-hexane and ethyl acetate fractions' IC50 values in the DPPH free radical scavenging experiment were 31.5 µg/ml and 35.44 µg/ml, respectively. After subsequent phytochemical analysis, potential bioactive compounds for drug development might be obtained from the GI stems. 

Dhaka Univ. J. Pharm. Sci. 24(1): 39-48, 2025 (June)