Antidiabetic green leafy vegetables currently sold in Trincomalee District in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Diabetes is a disease in which the body does not produce insulin or cannot use insulin effectively. In Sri Lanka, 1.2 million people among the age group of 20 to 79 were affected by diabetes in 2019. Biomedicine antidiabetic medications cause common side effects such as bladder cancer, dehydration, sinusitis, kidney illness, and urinary infections. Consumption of green leafy vegetables minimizes the risk of developing diabetes. Hence, this work aims to identify and document the green leafy vegetables currently sold in Trincomalee District in Sri Lanka by performing fieldwork visits to the main markets and the surrounding green leafy vegetable kiosks, shops, superstores, and streets from January 2019 to June 2021. The levels of antidiabetic scientific evidence available for the identified green leafy vegetable species were assessed by recognizing the relevant published works in the electronic databases Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, etc., until September 2021. A total of 99 green leafy vegetable species from 43 families were recognized. The majority of the green leafy vegetables had in vivo (33%), followed by in vitro (16%) and clinical (9%) as scientific evidences. Also, 49 antidiabetic compounds were already isolated from the identified green leafy vegetables. This study forms a foundation for further studies using the green leafy vegetable species in Trincomalee.