Therapeutic potentials of fenugreek.

Therapeutic potentials of several medicinal plants are under active investigations and there are several reports indicating their antidiabetic actions, including the one that appeared in your esteemed journal about fenugreek (Trigonella foenum graecum) seeds (1). Improvement in lipid profile also, following an oral administration of the whole seeds of this plant, has been reported by other workers (2). However, chemical analysis of the whole seeds reveals an interesting factthat is, the seeds have a high fibre content (upto 50.2%); which consists of 17.7% gum, 22.0% hemicellulose, 8.3% cellulose and 2.2% lignin. The observed hypoglycaemic and hypolipidaemic effects of the whole seeds in such studies are, at least partly, due to gastro-intestinal effects of these fibres, such as direct interference with intestinal absorption of glucose and cholesterol. Investigations on the effects of different histological subfractions of the seeds have also shown that antidiabetic properties are contained in the fibre rich high density part. The characteristic amino acid composition of the seed proteins has also been reported to exert hypoglycaemic action (3).