Etoundi Omgba Cunégonde Blanche, Mbang Mbarga Audrey Judith, Tuem Somon Regine and Gouado Inocent
Diabetes is a widespread chronic syndrome in the world. Although there are pharmaceutical antihyperglycemic agents, they nevertheless have limits, hence our interest in functional foods. Mushrooms are considered as vegetables though they do not belong to kingdom Plantea. The aim of this work was to evaluate the toxicity and antidiabetic activity of the ethanolic, hydroethanolic extracts of Pleurotus pulmonarius (P. pulùonarius) and the aqueous extract of Pleurotus floridanus (P. floridanus) which are two edible species of mushrooms commonly consumed in Cameroon. The various extracts were tested for acute toxicity and their antidiabetic activity was evaluated. Diabetes was induced by intraperitoneal route on adult Wistar-type albino rats using streptozotocin. The extracts were used to treat all animals during 28 days. Results showed that, these extracts revealed no evidence of apparent toxicity. After 28 days of diabetes treatment, a significant difference in body weight was observed between the normal control (NC) and the diabetic control (DC), where NC increases with time and the DC decreases. Both the tests groups and the Reference group showed slight weight loss with the aqueous extract of P. floridanus as the best extract (P<0.05). Normal control showed a normal blood glucose level throughout the treatment period, meanwhile blood glucose for DC was >2 g/L. The aqueous extract of P. floridanus and alcoholic extract of P. pulmonarius showed the best hypoglycaemic activity with the aqueous extract of P. floridanus better than the reference glibenclamide. These results suggest that P. floridanus and P. pulmonarius have significant hypoglycaemic activity in the treatment of diabetes
