Abstract:
Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by varying or persistent
hyperglycemia resulting from insufficient action of insulin. It is observed as the body’s incapacity
to efficiently regulate the sugar balance which leads to severe complications, pancreatic damage
resulting in the dysfunction of alpha and beta cells causes disordered glucose homeostasis. This
study intends to evaluate the effect of Carica papaya leaf methanol extract on plasma blood
glucose, lipid profile, bleeding time and clotting time of STZ induced diabetic rats.
Thirty male Wistar rats were randomly divided into five groups and administered different doses
of the extract for 14 days while normal control and diabetic control received distilled water. The
plasma glucose concentration and lipid profile in the blood plasma of experimental animals were
determined using Randox Kits; 20µl of samples and standard were mixed with 200µl of working
reagent and incubated at 37°C for 10minutes. The absorbance was read at 500nm against a blank.
Both the bleeding and clotting time were also determined as reported by Raof et al. (2013) and
Ibu and Adeniyi (1989) respectively. C. papaya leaf methanol extract caused significant (p<0.05)
reduction in plasma glucose concentration, plasma total cholesterol, triglycerides, VLDL-C, LDLC, bleeding time and clotting time of the diabetic rats while plasma HDL-C was significantly
elevated. The qualitative phytochemical screening showed the presence of steroids,
anthraquinone, tannin, and other bioactive compounds. This study showed that the methanol
extract of C. papaya exerted a hypoglycemic, hypolipidemic and procoagulatory effect which
improves the lipid profile in diabetic rats
