Abstract

Persea americana Mill. or avocado plant tree is well-known to people from the sub-Saharan part of Africa. Studies carried out earlier reported on the use of leaf extracts of the named plant to cure diabetes and other diseases in the south of Côte d’Ivoire. This study aimed to assess both acute toxicity and hypoglyceamic activity together with performing a comparative study. The acute toxicity was determined using the OECD 423 protocol, followed by the analysis of biochemical indicators, body weight variation and vital organs damage of healthy Wistar rats. The aqueous, ethanol and methanol extracts’ hypoglycaemic properties were investigated through the hypoglycaemic activity and oral glucose tolerance test. Thereafter, the phytochemical identification of the molecular compounds’ was carried out as well as polyphenols and total flavonoids quantification using Folin-ciacalteu and Neu reagent. The data analysis showed that P. americana leaf extracts’ are well tolerated in general at a unique dose of 2000 mg/kg. Nevertheless, a slight hepatitis occurrence was observed. Additionally, all extracts exhibited significant anti-hyperglyceamic activity 2 h after glucose administration. Ethanol extract (100 mg/kg) showed a strong activity by depleting the glyceamia rate by 59.6% during 5 h after glucose uptake as compared to glibenclamide at 61.6% followed by methanol extract at 49.2%. The ethanol extract also appeared to be the most provided with phenols and total flavonoids exhibiting respective amounts of 2952.7 ± 166 μg gallic acid equivalent/g and 0.582 ± 0.012%, respectively. The current study showed that both ethanol and methanol extracts displayed a good tolerance and significant anti-hyperglyceamic activity probably due to the presence of polyphenol in the extracts.

Key words: Persea americana Mill., avocado, toxicity, glyceamia, diabetes, rat.