Putative antidiabetic herbal food ingredients: Nutra/functional properties, bioavailability and effect on metabolic pathways

The utilization of herbal medicines for the management of diseases has provided admirable results. Plant extracts are rich in like polyphenols, alkaloids, glycosides, flavonoids, and terpenoids having specific health benefits. Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a non-communicable disease with a worldwide occurrence, characterized by persistent hyperglycemic conditions. Several oral hypoglycemic drugs viz. sulfonylureas, biguanides, α-glucosidase inhibitors, and non-sulfonylureas secretagogues are common medical recommendations for controlling diabetes. Consumption of oral hypoglycemic drugs demonstrate prominent side effects and to date, no permanent effective remedy for the complete recovery of DM is available. Until effective medication procedures are established; complementary and alternative medicines must be utilized to reduce the disease incidence. WHO has put herbal medicines on their priority list to treat various illnesses as they have lesser side effects, ease of access, affordability and low cost. Their administration can impart comparative functionality like medicine, if extracted in pure forms. Herbal antidiabetic formulations like dia-care, diabecure, syndrex, quath, churna, arth, vati etc are commercially available in the market. Identification of particular bioactive compound, minimum effective doses and effect on metabolic pathway needs to be verified to increase their acceptability by the medical practitioners. This provides an opportunity for the research personals to develop herbal foods or medicines which are nutritional, economic and have improved functionality. Keeping in view the potential of herbals for treating DM this review has been compiled to provide an overview on effect of antidiabetic herbal ingredients on metabolic pathway, their safety, bioavailability and future thrust areas for scientific developments. •Diabetes, with its sufferer's count still rising is a globally prevalent chronic disease.•Various plants, raw or processed are used as prophylactic and therapeutic agents since ages.•Herbal bioactives stimulate digestive system, liver, brain, pancreas or muscle tissues in response to high blood sugar.•Medical prescription of herbal ingredients still require elaborative exploration and sound pharmacological evaluation.