A Review-Phytomedicines Used in Treatment of Diabetes

Diabetes mellitus (DM), both insulin-dependent DM (IDDM) and non-insulin dependent DM (NIDDM) is a common and serious metabolic disorder throughout the world. Traditional plant treatments have been used throughout the world for the therapy of diabetes mellitus. Among many medications and other alternative medicines, several herbs have been known to cure and control diabetes; additionally they have no side effects. The present paper is an attempt to list of the plants with anti-diabetic and related beneficial effects originating from different parts of world. History showed that medicinal plants have been used in traditional healing around the world for a long time to treat diabetes; this is because such herbal plants have hypoglycemic properties and other beneficial properties, as reported in scientific literature. The medicinal plants, besides having natural therapeutic values against various diseases and considerable works have been done on these plants to treat diabetes mellitus, describes that the antidiabetic activity of medicinal plants is due to the presence of phenolic compounds, flavonoids, terpenoids, coumarins and other constituents which show reduction in blood glucose levels. Some of these herbal plants and their active chemical constituents which have a role in the management of diabetes mellitus are compiled here and discussed in this review.