Abstract
Diabetes and related neurological complications are serious worldwide public health problems. The increasing number of affected individuals make it necessary to implement novel nutritional and therapeutic interventions. The tree Moringa oleifera (MO) has been used as a food source and for traditional medicine purposes due to possible antihyperglycemic, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and lipid regulating properties. These properties may be explained by the presence of numerous phytochemicals in the leaves, fruits, roots and, oil of the tree. The evidence for acute antihyperglycemic effects of MO extract on diabetic animal models seems to be robust, but more chronic and long-term studies are needed. In contrast, the hypoglycemic effects of MO on humans are not as clear. The scarce number of human studies, together with a diverse range of methodologies and MO doses, may explain this. In addition, evidence regarding changes in insulin levels due to MO intervention is ambiguous, both in animal and human studies. Therefore, more structured studies are needed to clarify if MO has an effect on insulin levels or activity.
Highlights
Moringa oleifera (MO) is a tree belonging to the family Moringaceae, genus Moringa, originally native from the Himalayans but currently cultivated in many tropical and subtropical regions around the world [1]
Another study examined the effects of 12 week MO treatment (500 mg three times/day) in diabetes mellitus (DM) patients, finding significant plasmatic reductions in both hemoglobin A1C (HbA1C) levels and high specificity C-reactive protein [81], this study has serious limitations, which included not reporting the changes in blood glucose or insulin, no randomization or blinding in study design, not specifying the type of diabetes of participants, and having a very large age distribution, among others
We included animal in vivo and human reports about the role MO may play in diabetes, focused on changes in glycaemia and insulin
Summary
Moringa oleifera (MO) ( known as “drumstick”) is a tree belonging to the family Moringaceae, genus Moringa, originally native from the Himalayans but currently cultivated in many tropical and subtropical regions around the world [1]. MO has been used in traditional medicine for the treatment of various conditions and, more recently, has been proposed to be of benefit in numerous diseases including cardiovascular, diabetes, cancer, neurological, gastroenterological, and inflammatory [4] Such broad applications attributed to MO, may be explained by the vast amounts of compounds present in the different parts of the tree. Different components of MO tree are currently under investigation in order to study possible beneficial effects on the treatment of metabolic conditions, mainly DM It has been reported in animal models, that MO has antihyperglycemic activity [9] and can improve induced diabetic effects in rats [10]. We have focused on animal and human studies of DM, identifying this disease as a potential therapeutic target of MO
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