Role of Medicinal Plants in the Management of Diabetes Mellitus: A Review

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus is a worse metabolic condition in which level of glucose and lipid increased in blood circulation due to insufficient insulin functionality that may lead to worse the complication like atherosclerosis, dyslipidemia, gangrene, limb amputation, kidney failure, and many more. Furthermore, high concentration of glucose in blood stream can directly produce reactive oxygen species which ultimately more worsen the conditions like dyslipidemia, atherosclerosis etc. This disorder is expected to affect 9.3% of the global population in 2019, increasing to 10.2% by 2030 and increasing 10.9 % by 2045. Medicinal plants are used as medicine to treat many ailments since a long time ago. But now they have been rediscovered with having specific constituents to treat diseases and many more yet to discover. There are so many active phytoconstituents of plants which are being extracted, purified, tested and formulated for patient convenience. In the present review, various plants used to treat diabetes mellitus due to have negligible side effects as compared to allopathic treatment (oral hypoglycemic drugs) are described. Many plants with hypoglycemic effect of many plants have been reported, and the mechanisms of action of these plants with these hypoglycemic behaviors are being examined through in vitro and in vivo studies. Some of these 22 medicinal plants and their active constituents related to antidiabetic activity are discussed in this review.