Over the past 30 years, the status of diabetes has changed from being measured as a kind disorder of the old to one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality disturbing the childhood and middle aged people. It is essential to note that the increase in prevalence is seen in all six populated continents of the globe. Diabetes is deadly disease in both developed and developing countries. Indigofera is a varied genus that has shown unique characteristics making it an interesting candidate as a potential perennial crop. Specifically, there is diverse variation among species with a number of unique characteristics. Entire plants of I. astragalina were collected from Tiruchengode, Tamilnadu. The plant was authenticated by Dr. G.V.S. Murthy, Joint Director, Botanical Survey of India, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India. The extraction yield of the extracts from plant species is vastly depends on the solvent polarity, which find out both qualitatively and quantitatively the extracted compounds. Ethanol and water are the commonly used solvent for the extraction because of their low toxicity and high extraction yield with the advantage of modulating the polarity of the solvent by using mixtures at different ratios (Jackson et al, 1996). Ethanol soluble fractions were analyzed by TLC. These fractions constituted of mainly nonvolatile mixtures of compounds. The visualizations were aided by either observing the TLC under an UV lamp or by exposing the developed TLC plates to iodine vapor. The plant extracts at both the dose level of 200 and 400 mg/kg registered 79.87 to 85.83 mg/dl of fasting blood glucose level at the end of 10h of the study, while the standard drug, glibenclamide showed 71.63 mg/dl at the same time, with a low degree of significance while compared with the solvent treated group.
Keywords: Diabetes Mellitus, I. astragalina, glibenclamide, alloxanisation
