Medicinal Chemistry

Role of Antidiabetic Compounds on Glucose Metabolism â?? A Special Focus on Medicinal Plant: Salacia sps

Abstract

Deepak KGK, Nageswara Rao Reddy Neelapu and Surekha Challa

Diabetes mellitus is one of the common metabolic diseases in the world associated with high blood sugar levels. Diabetes is categorized into type I and type II. The common type of diabetes is type II diabetes that is insulin dependent. On a global level, plant sources employed in traditional medicine are believed to be valuable to treat diseases. Ancient physicians had mastered the science of managing diabetes by balancing herbs or plants as food and medicine. Modern therapies are too costly to be practical for diabetic referrers. The ethanopharmacological use of herbal remedies for the treatment of diabetes is an area of study with a huge potential in the development of alternative, inexpensive therapies for treating the disease. The present paper reviews various traditionally used medicinal plants and their modes of action. Medicinal plants such as Anacardium occidentale, Coccinia indica, Gymnema sylvestre, Panax ginseng, Salacia spp. etc. with their active compounds such as salacinol, kotalanol, glucoside jamboline, phytol, myoinositol, scyllitol, pryones, stigmat-4-en-3-one, cholest-4-en-3-one etc. showed antidiabetic activity. The different modes of action by these compounds include inhibition of intestinal amylase-α-glucosidase, increase of β-cell stimulation, increase in number of insulin receptors, increase in insulin receptor binding affinity to the released insulin, fighting against free radicals to decrease cell damage and decrease of hepatic glucose by decreasing gluconeogenesis and glycogenolysis.