In Vietnam, lotus plants are widely grown. Some parts of the lotus plant have been used as a tradition medicine. The lotus plant is easy to find, inexpensive, non-toxic and accepted by many Vietnamese people as a means of treating diabetes, and yet data on the mechanism or even effectiveness of lotus leaf on diabetes mellitus was not known. The present study was designed to evaluate the hypoglycemic effect of lotus leaf on mice which had alloxan induced diabetes. | JOURNAL OF SCIENCE OF HNUE Chemical and Biological Sci. 2012 Vol. 57 No. 8 pp. 138-147 This paper is available online at http ANTI-DIABETIC EFFECTS OF LOTUS Nelumbo nucifera LEAVES IN ALLOXAN-INDUCED DIABETIC MICE Nguyen Thi Hong Hanh Ma Thi Thu Le and Le Thi Tuyet Faculty of Biology Hanoi National University of Education Abstract. To evaluate the anti-diabetic property of lotus Nelumbo nucifera leaves experimentation took place making use of an animal model before proceeding to clinical trials. Diabetes was induced by intraperitoneal injection of alloxan 75 mg kg of body weight . Lotus leaves were orally administered once a day for 15 days in the amount of 600 mg kg followed by a daily injection of alloxan for three days. Blood glucose levels were measured on the 5th 10th 15th days of the experiment. Body weight BW and blood glucose levels were determined on the mice which were given alloxan. A comparison was made between normal mice mice which were diabetic and diabetic mice which were fed lotus leaves. The results indicated that the administration of lotus leaves tended to bring the parameters BW blood glucose levels significantly closer to the norm. From the histopathological examination that was done we found that the pancreas of mice treated with lotus leaves both increased the size and restored the normal endocrine cell population size of the islets of langerhans. A kidney histology showed that no difference was found in the structure of the glomerulus and vessels when comparing normal mice and diabetic mice which were given lotus leaves. We therefore conclude that lotus leaves have an anti-diabetic effect and should be the subject of future studies. Keywords Hypoglycemic diabetic alloxan mice lotus leaf Nelumbo nucifera. 1. Introduction Diabetes mellitus DM is a chronic disease caused by an inherited and or acquired deficiency in production of insulin by the pancreas or by an ineffectiveness of the insulin produced. DM is a common .
