Copacetic herbal extraction techniques and diabetes induction methods for developing countries

Abstract

Extraction is an empirical exercise for the discovery of bioactive constituents from the plant materials. Selection of a suitable extraction technique is also important for the standardization of herbal products and to eliminate unwanted material by treatment with a selective solvent known as "menstrum". Traditional conventional methods such as maceration, rotary evaporation, soxhelation, percolation, lyophilization, infusion, decoction etc are more cheap and appropriate for developing countries rather than fast and environmentally friendly green extraction techniques like ultrasound assisted solvent extraction, microwave assisted solvent extraction and supercritical fluid extractions for phytochemical processing of medicinal plants. Moreover, plant-derived phytochemicals have established their role for possible use in diabetes treatment which is the world's largest endocrine disease associated with increased morbidity and mortality rate. Several experimental models are used to study pathophysiological factors involved in diabetes and to assess the efficacy of herbal antihyperglycemic agents. Today different strains of laboratory animals are available and therapeutic studies on diabetes are mostly carried out on these models. In animals, it can be induced by partial pancreatectomy or by the administration of diabetogenic drugs such as alloxan, streptozotocin, ditizona and anti-insulin serum. Hence, the review is aiming to draw attention of the relevant researchers to the convenient use of suitable extraction technique and diabetogenic drugs for developing countries.