Medicinal plants used for Diabetes mellitus: An Overview

Abstract

Before the advent of insulin, diabetes was treated with plant medicines. Numerous biologically active plants are discovered by evaluation of ethnopharmacological data, and these plants may offer the local population immediately accessible therapeutic products. The earliest known documentation of plant-derived treatments for diabetes is present in the Ebers Papyrus of about 1550 BC. Since then, multitudes of herbs, spices, and other plant materials have been described for the treatment of diabetes throughout the world. Traditional anti-diabetic plants might provide a useful source of new oral hypoglycemic compounds for development as pharmaceutical entities, or as simple dietary adjuncts to existing therapies. Renewed attention to alternative medicines and natural therapies has stimulated a new wave of research interest in traditional practices. Since last 20 years, scientific investigations have confirmed the efficacy of many of these preparations; some of them are remarkably effective. From these researches, it has been well established that present phytoconstituents like alkaloids, flavonoids, glycosides and polysaccharides are responsible for the hypoglycaemic effect.