STUDY ON THE EFFECTS OF MTULE BASIL (OCIMUM SUAVE) ON DIABETES

STUDY ON THE EFFECTS  OF MTULE BASIL (OCIMUM SUAVE) ON DIABETES

INTRODUCTION

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a metabolic disorder of the endocrine system. The disease is

characterized by hyperglycaemia caused by either insulin insufficiency or insensitivity of target cells to insulin;both leading to impaired metabolism of glucose, lipids and proteins as well as dysfunction and failure of various organs (Kim et al., 2006).

The disease occurs worldwide and its incidence is increasing rapidly in most parts of

   the world.

 

 

(Adebayo, 2009). Diabetes is commonly accompanied by other cardiovascular risk factors such as dyslipidemia,  hypertension, prothrombic factors and microvascular

problems involving eyes, kidney and peripheral nerves (Barnett and O’ Gara, 2003). Experimental evidence is mounting strongly associating oxidative stress and most of the complications seen in DM (Seth and Sharma, 0004; Devasagayam et al., 2007).

The oral hypogly-caemic agents currently used in clinical practice have

characteristic profiles of serious side effects such as weight gain, gastrointestinal discomfort and nausea, liver failure and diarrhea (Suba et al. , 2004; Stephen, 2006); 

in addition to being rather costly. However, DM is also treated traditionally 

in some placesusing anti-diabetic medicinal plants (Kim et al., 2011). Ocimum species

are culinary herb plants that belong to the family