TRACING PLANT POTENTIAL FOR CONTROLLING DIABETES: A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic metabolic non- communicable condition characterized with elevated or raised blood sugar or glucose levels for a prolonged period of time. The high level of blood sugar leads to development of specific symptoms like polyuria, polydipsia and polyphagia. The other symptoms include abnormal weight loss, fatigue, poor wound healing, infections, altered mental state and blurry vision. Exploring alternative treatments for diabetes, particularly those derived from medicinal plants, is indeed a prudent approach. Traditional medicine systems like Ayurveda have long utilized various plant-based remedies for managing diabetes, offering potential alternatives to synthetic drugs. The rich diversity of medicinal plants offers a vast array of bioactive compounds with potential anti-diabetic properties. Research into these natural compounds provides promising avenues for the development of novel therapeutics with potentially fewer side effects compared to synthetic drugs. Therefore, the present study aims to improve general health and immunity and increases the life span by using herbal therapy with the objectives to study the antidiabetic plants and their active components responsible for antidiabetic activity. The total numbers of plants studied were nearly 54 belonging to 35 different families such as Fabaceae, Liliaceae, Rutaceae, Brassicaceae, Cucurbitaceae, Euphorbiaceae, and Rubiaceae. Most of the studied plants show that antidiabetic components are present in different plant parts- root, stem, leaf, flower, bark and whole plants. Certain active components are hypoglycemic in nature and are responsible for decreasing blood glucose level. Apart from this, these plants also causes release of insulin from pancreatic beta cells, decreases plasma triglycerides level, reduces glysated haemoglobin etc. Therefore, it is suggested to use antidiabetic plants for curing diabetes and to promote to search for new phytoconstituents which can cure the diabetes.