Optimize Diabetes by Herbal Medicine: A Review

Abstract

Plant-based medicinal products have been acknowledged since ancient times and several medicinal plants and their products have been used to control diabetes in the traditional medicinal systems of many cultures worldwide. Several synthetic oral hypoglycemic agents are the primary forms of treatment for diabetes. However, prominent side-effects of such drugs are the main reason for an increasing number of people seeking alternative therapies that may have less severe or no side effects but little toxicological information exists concerning traditional antidiabetic plants. The present paper is an attempt to list the plants with anti-diabetic and related beneficial effects originating from different parts of the world and polyhedral formulations. History has shown 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. There are some such plants described in this review, which clearly shows the importance of herbal plants and polyhedral formulations in the treatment of diabetes mellitus. The effects of these plants may delay the development of diabetic complications and provide a rich source of antioxidants that are known to prevent/delay different diseased states.