Quality Assessment of Antidiabetic Herbal Products Marketed Within Zaria Metropolis, Kaduna State, Nigeria
Peace Onoja-okpe*, Salisu Awwalu and Aminu Musa
- Department of Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria
| Key words:
Metformin, heavy metals, physiochemical, phytochemicals, diabetes, herbal preparations
*Corresponding Author: onojapeacesmith@gmail.com
Page No: 334-347
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AbstractThe increasing prevalence of diabetes mellitus in Nigeria has led to increased reliance on herbal medicines as affordable alternative treatment to conventional medicine. Nevertheless, the quality of these herbal products remains uncertain due to inadequate regulation, contamination, and possible adulteration with synthetic drugs. This study assessed the quality of sixteen (16) antidiabetic herbal products marketed within Zaria metropolis, Nigeria. Physicochemical evaluations including moisture content, total ash, water soluble ash, acid insoluble ash, extractive values, pH values and weight variations, were carried out in line with the World Health Organization (WHO) and British Pharmacopeia (BP) guidelines. Phytochemical constituents of the herbal product were determined using the procedure reported by Trease and Evans. Thin layer chromatography (TLC) was employed to screen the samples for the presence of metformin as an undeclared adulterant, while Pb, Cd, Ni, Fe, Mn, and Zn were determined using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry (AAS) after wet digestion of HNO3 and HClO4 in a ratio of 3:1. None of the analyzed samples pass weight uniformity test, the moisture content of the samples ranged from 6.88 – 9.55% with two samples being more than the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) limit. None of the samples had water extractable and ethanol values above the minimum limit. The range for total ash values (7.30- 13.85) of all the samples were within the European pharmacopoeia (EP) limit. The water-soluble ash and acid-insoluble ash values were within the ranges of 1.35 – 7.10 % and 6.83 – 13.18 % respectively. Alkaloids, flavonoids, saponins carbohydrates and cardiac glycoside were present in all the samples. No evidence of synthetic adulteration with metformin was detected. Analysis of the level of contamination of the herbal preparation with the toxic heavy metals indicated that 25% of the samples contained cadmium above WHO permissible limits (0.3μg/g) specified for herbal medicine and 25% of the samples contained lead (Pb) above WHO permissible limits (10μg/g) specified for herbal medicines.
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