Indigenous plant medicines for health care:treatment of Diabetes mellitus and hyperlipidemia

Medicinal plants have played an important role in treating and preventing a variety of diseases throughout the world.Metabolic syndrome had become a global epidemic,defined as a cluster of three of five criteria:insulin resistance and glucose intolerance,abdominal obesity,hypertension,low high-density cholesterol,and hypertriglyceridemia.The current review focuses on Indian medicinal plant drugs and plants used in the treatment of diabetes and hyperlipidemia.Though there are various approaches to reduce the ill-effects of diabetes and hyperlipidemia and its secondary complications,plant-based drugs are preferred due to lesser side effects and low cost.The current review focuses on twenty-three medicinal plants used in the treatment of Diabetes mellitus and nine medicinal plants used in the treatment of hyperlipidemia.The wealth of knowledge on medicinal plants points to a great potential for research and the discovery of new drugs to fight diseases,including diabetes and hyperlipidemia.