Abstract

TRADITIONAL ANTIDIABETIC HERBAL DRUGS OF INDIA: USES AND CHALLENGES

Rachna Pandey*

ABSTRACT

The flora worldwide is still under-explored and less documented to a substantial extent. The pharmaceutical potential of only a small fraction of the plant species has been studied in spite of the existence of vast traditional knowledge on medicinal use and taxonomical clues. Due to improper reporting and less availability of accurate results, herbal medicines till date falls prey to a great number of questions regarding their effectiveness and safety. Dealing with diseases such as Diabetes mellitus, both pharmacological and phytochemical evaluation of herbal alternatives turns out to be the backbone of incorporating herbal option more commercially as this provides detailed information about their therapeutic utility, active compounds, shelf life and certain constituents. Irrespective of all recent advances, the world has still not been able to utilize herbal options to an optimum level despite of availability of the plants locally and very easily portraying the hypoglycemic activity. The review provides a holistic view about various herbal antidiabetic options as well as the prospects with herbal drugs and their potential advantages keeping their pharamacological and phytochemical evaluation acting as the basis of their selection and incorporation, and areas of improvement.

Keywords: Diabetes mellitus, Antidiabetic herbal drugs, Phytochemicals, Pharmacological activity.