Abstract

A BRIEF REVIEW ON ANTI-DIABETIC CONSTITUENTS OF PLANTS AND POTENTIAL OF LANTANA CAMARA AS AN ANTI-DIABETIC PLANT

Rajat Kumar, *Dr. Ashwani Kumar, Om Prakash Joshi, Anshul Verma and Ashu Saini

ABSTRACT

Diabetes mellitus is a medical condition which has been affecting a large number of human populations. The disease is associated with metabolic abnormalities result in hyperglycemia. Diabetes affects the metabolism of carbohydrates along with lipids & proteins. Synthetic allopathic medicines are expensive & have severe side effects, that is the reason researchers are now focused on effective plant-based treatment for diabetes & related complications. Lantana camara is a commonly found plant in the world that belongs to the Verbenaceae family. L. camara is mostly considered an unwanted invasive weed, but it is a source of a vast variety of phytochemicals that have great therapeutic potential. It was used in traditional medicine for the treatment of various types of diseases. Plant constituents like polyphenols, cardiac glycosides, flavonoids, alkaloids, terpenoids, saponins, and tannins are majorly responsible for their anti-diabetic activity. L. camara has some major constituents that show antidiabetic activities as well as activities against diabetes related complications such as diabetic ulcers and oxidative stress. Choosing the right solvent is the most crucial part of the extraction process in order to extract the right plant constituents. L. camara has proven antihyperglycemic activities & has potential to be an antidiabetic plant but more toxicology, pharmacology, and clinical studies are required before L. camara‘s formulations could come to the market and it can be used as therapeutic agent. Further studies are also required to find the accurate mechanism of action of these plant constituents, which show antidiabetic activities, so more plant-based drugs could be discovered.

Keywords: Lantana camara, Anti-diabetic, Anti-hyperglycemic, Phytochemicals, Antioxidant.