Calistus Dozie Nwakile and Vincent C. Okore

Abstract

The study aims to evaluate the blood sugar reduction activity of seed oil extracted from the seed of Picralima nitida and to compare its intraperitonial and oral administration with that of seed extract and glibenclamide administered orally. The seed oil given intraperitonially at dose levels of 1.0 and 0.25 ml/kg produce an initial increase in blood glucose that started resolving after three hours. The dose level of 0.125 ml/kg, however, did not produce this initial increase and had maximum blood sugar reduction of 20.1 % after six hours. The seed oil administered orally at 2.0 ml/kg gave a consistent reduction in blood glucose level with a maximum of 32.9 % of baseline occurring at the sixth hour. The seed extract at 500 mg/kg and glibenclamide at 0.07 mg/kg produced blood sugar reductions of 13.2 and 24.3 % respectively. The findings indicated that seed oil has a better blood sugar reduction activity when administered orally than when administered intraperitonially. It also performs better than the seed extract and glibenclamide when administered orally.