Clinical study evaluating antihyperglycemic efficacy and safety of terminalia arjuna versus sitagliptin in Type-2 diabetes mellitus patients

Diabetes mellitus (DM) and its complications are devastating and our literature has mentioned different potentialities of <i>terminalia arjuna</i>, including antihyperglycemic effects, but majority researches done on animals, rarely clinical studies conducted. Our 3month study enrolling 60 DM patients analyzed bark of <i>T.arjuna</i> for its antihyperglycemic effects along with safety, group TAM: <i>terminalia arjuna</i> 1gm with metformin 500mg twice daily, group SGM: Sitagliptin 100mg once, with metformin 500mg twice daily. FBS, LFT and ADRs monitored at baseline, 4, 8 and 12 weeks, while HbA1c at baseline and 12weeks, FBS and HbA1c showed significant (<0.05) reduction in both groups, the reduction in FBS at 4, 8 & 12weeks in gpSGM vs gpTAM (FBS -29.50±8.86 vs -22.57±9.28, -46.03±9.73 vs 42.13±8.95, -62.80±9.06 vs -61.17±10.22) and in HbA1c at 12 weeks was comparable gpSGM vs gpTAM (HbA1c -0.90±0.34 vs 0.89±0.29) difference was non-significant (>0.05). On monitoring ADRs, gpSGM 2/30 had headache and 1/30 had nasopharyngitis initially during first 4weeks, which was revealed later on, while none had any side effects in gpTAM. Thus, concluding that both are equally efficacious as antihyperglycemic agent but <i>terminalia arjuna</i> has slight upper hand as is better tolerated in respect to any adverse drug reaction with comparable efficacy too.