IPB Students Conduct Research on Pandan Leaf Tea, an Alternative Cure for Diabetes Mellitus

Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) students, Ika Jenri Ramadayanti, Adyesta Prema Oktadilian, and Agustin Nazillatun Nikmah from the Department of Nutrition and Feed Technology, Faculty of Animal Husbandry supervised by Arif Darmawan, S.Pt, M. Si conducted research on the potency of pandan leaf tea in treating diabetes mellitus. This research was submitted to Research Student Creativity Program (PKM PE) in 2018.

According to Ika, diabetes mellitus is a disease that became the third biggest killer in Indonesia. The number of patients continues to increase from year to year. Diabetes mellitus is a disease with metabolic disorders characterized by a rise in blood glucose due to decreased insulin secretion. This disease can be caused due to inappropriate lifestyle and diet.

The most horrible thing about this disease is that it can decrease the function of eyesight, increase the risk of kidney, heart, lung, nervous disorders, can cause stroke, wounds are difficult to heal and even rot.

"During this time, the treatment of diabetes mellitus uses drugs from chemicals that are often cause impact on other organs. Therefore, we try to examine the pandan leaf tea for this diabetes mellitusas alternative healing," he said.

This study aims to utilize pandan leaves made into tea as a herbal cure for diabetes mellitus. In addition, this study also to determine the content of bioactive compounds contained in pandan leaves as an alternative drug in the reduction of glucose.

The results obtained from this research are blood glucose level of animal test (rat) before being treated with pandan leaf tea is above the normal range, after consuming pandan leaf tea within 3-4 weeks span, the rat blood glucose level decreased and is in the range normal.

"What distinguishes this tea with regular tea is it has a very strong pandan scent, but in terms of taste it is the same as regular tea in general. The availability of raw material is also abundant, because generally there are many people grow this plant," said Ika.

The bioactive compounds contained in pandan leaf are of flavonoids, alkaloids, tannins, and polyphenols. Because of these compounds, pandan leaf can be a cure for diabetes mellitus. Alkaloids and flavonoids are the main cause in lowering high blood glucose (hyperglycemia), preventing complications of diabetes mellitus and cleaning up excessive free radicals in the body.

"We hope this research can be a new breakthrough in the world of health, and become a solution of diabetes mellitus for the people of Indonesia in particular or even the world later. In addition, I hope these findings are able to suppress the number of patients and deaths caused by this disease and people become aware to the efficacy of pandan leaf and are interested in consuming this pandan leaf tea," said Ika. (FM)