CINNAMIC ACID AND ITS DERIVATIVES IN THE HERBAL MIXTURES AND THEIR ANTIDIABETIC ACTIVITY

Due to the wide range of biologically active substances the herbal mixtures can influence in many ways of the pathogenic mechanism of diabetes mellitus development and its complications Cinnamic acid and its derivatives deserve a particular attention due to their antidiabetic and antioxidant properties. We investigated five samples of herbal mixtures which contained vegetal product with potential high content of these compounds. Using HPLC analysis we evaluated the content of 4 derivatives of cinnamic acid, namely chlorogenic, caffeic, ferulic and sinapic acid in the sample 1 of the herbal mixture; cinnamic acid and 4 of its derivatives, such as chlorogenic, p-coumaric, ferulic and sinapic acid in the samples 2 - 5. Our results showed that the predominant phenolic acid was chlorogenic and its content was 149.8 mu g/g in the first sample, 180.1 mu g/g in the second sample, 306.7 mu g/g in sample 3, 182.7 mu g/g in sample 4 and 257.57 mu g/g in sample 5. During the assay of in vitro antidiabetic activity we evaluated the inhibitory potential of alpha-amylase and alpha-glucosidase. Our results showed that the herbal mixtures considered may be of potential use as antidiabetics.