Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Jordan, Amman.
Pharm Biol. 2011 Mar;49(3):221-39. doi: 10.3109/13880209.2010.501802. Epub 2010 Oct 28.
Diabetes is a serious disease which has reached epidemic proportions in many parts of the world. Despite the tremendous developments in medicinal chemistry, traditional medicine is still a common practice for the treatment of diabetes.
In Jordanian traditional medicine, 69 plant species are used by diabetic patients to reduce glucose levels in blood. The aim of the present study is to report these plants and link their traditional use with scientific evidence confirming their claimed activity. The plant part(s) used, method(s) of preparation, common Arabic names, and other ethnopharmacological uses are also listed.
The literature and databases (SciFinder, PubMed, ScienceDirect and Scirus) have been thoroughly investigated and the plants used have been grouped according to the reported scientific evidence.
Results showed that 40 plants have been reported to possess hypoglycemic activities in in vivo/in vitro experiments. Five plant species did not exhibit in vivo hypoglycemic activity, while 24 plants had not been studied for such an activity. Twenty plants had been screened for their α-amylase/α-glucosidase inhibitory activities.
The reported in vivo and in vitro hypoglycemic as well as α-amylase/α-glucosidase inhibitory activities of these plants are discussed.
Additional in vitro and in vivo studies are needed to test the hypoglycemic activity of the plants with claimed antidiabetic activity which has not yet been evaluated. Identification of the active ingredients of potent plants might generate lead compounds in drug discovery and development.
糖尿病是一种严重的疾病，在世界许多地区已经达到了流行的程度。尽管药物化学取得了巨大的发展，但传统医学仍然是治疗糖尿病的常见方法。
在约旦传统医学中，69 种植物被糖尿病患者用于降低血液中的葡萄糖水平。本研究旨在报告这些植物，并将其传统用途与证实其声称的活性的科学证据联系起来。还列出了植物的使用部分、制备方法、常见的阿拉伯名称和其他民族药理学用途。
对文献和数据库（SciFinder、PubMed、ScienceDirect 和 Scirus）进行了彻底调查，并根据报道的科学证据对所用植物进行了分类。
结果表明，有 40 种植物在体内/体外实验中被报道具有降血糖活性。有 5 种植物没有表现出体内降血糖活性，而 24 种植物尚未对此类活性进行研究。有 20 种植物已经被筛选出具有α-淀粉酶/α-葡萄糖苷酶抑制活性。
讨论了这些植物的报道的体内和体外降血糖以及α-淀粉酶/α-葡萄糖苷酶抑制活性。
需要进行额外的体外和体内研究来测试具有声称的抗糖尿病活性但尚未得到评估的植物的降血糖活性。对有潜力的植物的有效成分进行鉴定可能会在药物发现和开发中产生先导化合物。
