Abstract
Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disorder in the endocrine system. This dreadful disease is found in all parts of the world and is becoming a serious threat to mankind health. It is caused by the deficiency or ineffective production of insulin by pancreas which results in increase or decrease in concentrations of glucose in the blood. There are lots of chemical agents available to control and to treat diabetic patients, but total recovery from diabetes has not been reported up to this date. Alternative to these synthetic agents, many herbal plants with hypoglycemic properties are known from across the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) has listed 21,000 plants, which are used for medicinal purposes around the world. Among these 2500 species are in India, out of which 150 species are used commercially on a fairly large scale. India is the largest producer of medicinal herbs and is called as botanical garden of the world. This paper focuses mainly on diabetes, plants used as Antidiabetic in various traditional medicines, constituents isolated from these plants, various mechanisms through which herbs act against diabetes and few examples of antidiabetic formulations available in the market.
