Evaluation of hypoglycaemic activity of spine gourd powder (Momordica dioica Roxb.) formulated product (Khakra) in STZ induced diabetic rats

Abstract: Spine gourd is popular as an emerging underutilized crop due to its various health benefits and medicinal properties. Its powder is used to form a dish called Khakra. Khakra is one of the famous dishes made out of mat bean and wheat flour, a popular dish of western India mainly in Gujarat and Rajasthan, which is used as a snack or during breakfast. During the preparation of Khakra along with whole wheat flour and Bengal gram flour, 50 % of spine gourd powder was used and evaluated for hypoglycaemic activity in STZ induced diabetic wistar rats. The oral administration of Khakra of about 5 to 10 g/rat/day was given for diabetic induced and normal rats for about 21 days and observations were recorded at 0^th, 7^th, 14^th and 21^st day for serum glucose (mg/dL), serum cholesterol (mg/dL) and serum haemoglobin (mg/dL). The Group 6 (STZ + Laboratory diet + Spine gourd Khakraat 10g/ kg body weight/day) showed significant decrease (P<0.01) in serum glucose, serum cholesterol and significant increase (P<0.01) in serum haemoglobin which was found to be dose-dependent. In case of normal rats no significant decrease in serum glucose and serum cholesterol was observed.