PREPARATION AND STANDARDISATION OF AYURVEDIC POLYHERBAL FORMULATION: AN ANTIDIABETIC CHURNA

Biju T. Francis* and Dr. Sudha S.

ABSTRACT

Traditional medicines refer to the knowledge, approaches, beliefs and health practices that incorporate plants, animals based medicines, manual techniques, exercises, spiritual therapies etc., which are applied individually or in combination to maintain well being or prevent, treat and diagnose illnesses. Diabetes mellitus becomes a severe threat to human life and several approaches are adopted to control the ill effects of diabetes and its complications; still herbal remedies are considered as the preferred choice due to low cost and lesser side effects. The variability in the efficacy of herbal medicines, unavailability of rigid quality control parameters and lack of authentic scientific based documentation procedures for herbal materials and their formulations are considered as a major problem in herbal medicine industry. The present study focuses on standardization of polyherbal churna of seven well-known traditional medicinal plants used in the treatment of diabetes. The polyherbal churna is prepared by using the different parts of Phyllanthus emblica (fruit), Phyllanthus amarus (whole plant), Tinospora cordifolia (whole plant), Curcuma longa (rhizome), Syzygium aromaticum (flower), Piper longum (fruit) and Moringa oleifera (leaf). The outcome of the present research may be applied as a reference standard for setting quality control limits for the polyherbal medicine and can be further utilized in the formulation development of different dosage forms.

Keywords: Antidiabetic, Polyherbal churna, Physicochemical screening, Standardization, GC-MS.