The increasing worldwide incidence of diabetes mellitus in adults constitutes
a global public health burden. It is predicted that by 2030, India, China and the United
States will have the largest number of people with diabetes. By definition, diabetes
mellitus is categorized as a metabolic disease characterized by hyperglycemia resulting
from defects in insulin secretion, insulin action, or both. The vast majority of cases of
diabetes fall into two broad etiopathogenetic categories. The first category, type 1
diabetes, the cause is an absolute deficiency of insulin secretion. While the second type
is much more prevalent category, called as type 2 diabetes, the cause is a combination
of resistance to insulin action and an inadequate compensatory insulin-secretory
response. Despite the great interest in the development of new drugs to prevent the
burden of complications associated with this disease and the raised interest in the
scientific community to evaluate either raw or isolated natural products in experimental
studies, few of them were tested in humans. This chapter is a contribution to the
understanding of ethnopharmacology of plants having hypoglycemic activity and its
contribution to the elaboration of new treatment of diabetes mellitus.
Keywords: Diabetes, hypoglycemic activity, ethnopharmacology, type 1, type 2,
glucose, insulin, secretory, mechanism of action, public health.
