Inhibitory activities of Ficus benghalensis bark against carbohydrate hydrolyzing enzymes - An in vitro study

The present study evaluated the effect of Ficus benghalensis Linn. (Moraceae) stem bark on porcine pancreatic α-amylase, rat intestinal α-glucosidase and sucrase. Further, the effect of heat treatment was also studied. Both untreated and heattreated samples inhibited α-amylase to a significant extent. Further, the aqueous extracts prepared form untreated and heat treated samples exhibited significant inhibition (p ≤ 0.05) of α-glucosidase and sucrase in a dose dependent manner. Heat treatment of the sample increased α-glucosidase and sucrase inhibitory activities at lower concentrations, however no statistical differences were observed at higher concentrations. Consequently, the untreated extracts showed IC50 values of 158 and 193 μg mL-1 for α-glucosidase and sucrase respectively while, the heat-treated extracts showed the IC50 values 77 and 141 μg mL-1 respectively. Further, a significant correlation (p ≤ 0.05; r = 0.698) was observed between α-glucosidase and sucrase inhibitory activities of both untreated and heat-treated extracts. The results clearly demonstrate that inhibition of carbohydrate hydrolyzing enzymes is one of the mechanism through which F. benghalensis bark exerts its hypoglycemic effect in vivo.