Abstract

Introduction: In the past few years traditional medicines have become hot topics for life science researchers as there is a worldwide emergence of herbal drugs for treating various diseases affecting mankind. These herbal drugs are being increasingly used as drugs or dietary supplement for fighting or prevent common diseases such as colds, diarrhea, diabetic and so on. Objective: The phytochemmical screening, antioxidant, antiglycation and antibacterial properties of four Ayurvedic drugs (Diabecon, Pilex, Septilin and Rumalaya) and seven Chinese herbal drugs (Leung PuiKee, Jin Quian Chao, Po Chai, Cheng Sie Lung, EngAun Tong, Tin Hee, Bi Yan Pian) commercially available in Mauritius were evaluated. Powdered drugs or methanolic extracts of the drugs were analyzed for the phytochemical constituents. Antibacterial activity was evaluated by Disc diffusion assay with two gram positive and two gram negative bacteria. The free radical scavenging activity of the herbal drugs were assessed using 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical (DPPH) assay and antiglycation activity of the drugs was also evaluated. Results: Most of the drugs showed the presence of alkaloids, saponins, tannins and polyphenols. The drugs showed higher activity for gram positive bacteria compared to gram negative bacteria. The Ayurvedic drugs showed higher activity as compare to the Chinese drugs against the different stains tested. Septilin showed highest activity with an MIC value of 1 mg/mL and 5 mg/mL against Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus cereus respectively. The drugs were found to possess significant scavenging activity with SC50 values in the range of (1.3 × 10-4 – 200× 10-4) μg/ml and inhibit the AGE formation with IC50 values ranging 2.0-7.2 μg/ml. Among the drugs tested, Diabecon was found to be the most potent anti-oxidant and anti-glycation drug with SC50 and IC50 values of 1.3 × 10-4 and 4.2 μg/ml. Pearson analysis showed a good correlation between phenolic content and radical scavenging or antiglycation activities while the tannin content was found to influence the anti-bacterial activity. Conclusions: The present study conclusively demonstrates that the presence of phenolic compounds influence positively the radical scavenging and antiglycation activities. In addition the results also indicated that tannin was the main metabolite responsible for the antibacterial activity.