In 1996, Kakuda et al. (19) studied banaba's antidiabetic activity by preparing water and methanol extracts of the plant. After feeding the extracts to hereditary type 2 diabetic KK-Ay/Ta Jcl mice, they found that food containing either 5% of water extract (BE) or 3% of methanol extract was effective in reducing blood glucose and insulin levels (P50.05) (19) . It is interesting to note that the total cholesterol in treated mice was also significantly reduced, but the plasma triglyceride level remained unchanged (19) .