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Diabetes is a chronic metabolic disease that creates high blood sugar level. Therefore, diabetes awareness is necessary to prevent diabetes by reducing sugar intake and using low-calorie alternative sweeteners instead. Stevia rebaudiana is a medicinal plant species belonging to the Compositae family. It is a sweet herb that contains diterpene glycosides, which are directly responsible for the sweet taste, but they have no caloric value. Since ancient times, there have been several reports on the use of S. rebaudiana as an alternative sweetener and extended research has been conducted on its phytochemicals and biological activities. The plant contains a good number of phytochemicals with significant biological activities, namely polyphenolic derivatives, diterpenes glycosides, alkaloids, glycosides, tannins, chlorophylls, carotenoids, etc. For industrial use, those phytochemicals could be extracted from the selected plant and used for the preparation of nutraceuticals and food additives. S. rebaudiana is a natural herb; therefore, it has fewer or minimal adverse effects on human health. The selected plant in various forms is used for the treatment of diabetes, colon cancer, obesity, cavities, and others. However, the literature review shows that the information on this plant and its uses is not systematic. The purpose of the present review is to explore the status of phytochemicals and biological activities of the selected plant for young researchers. Therefore, the updated data will help them to develop new nutraceuticals and food additives that could help in the production of pharmaceuticals to treat different ailments.

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Nowadays, effective medications as antioxidant agents are mandatory for a safe and sustainable environment. Dodonaea viscosa (D. viscosa) is used traditionally by the Omani people to treat rheumatism, toothaches, fever, cold, malaria, headaches, indigestion, ulcers, diarrhea, and constipation, dysmenorrheal and irregular menstruation. This study was carried out to prepare leaf extracts by different solvents and to determine their antioxidant activity and total phenols content. The selected plant was collected locally near the University Campus, Nizwa, Oman. The dried coarse powder was used for the extraction with methanol and it was defatted with water and successively partitioned with different polarity solvents with increasing solvent polarity. The total phenols content and antioxidant activity of the prepared different extracts were assessed by Folin-Ciocalteu reagent (FCR) and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl (DPPH) methods. The total phenols content of different extracts was in the range of 3.02-249.93 mg gallic acid/g dry extract. The chloroform extract showed the maximum amount of total phenol compounds (249.93 mg GAE acid/g dry extract) and the minimum content was found in water extract (3.02 mg GAE acid/g dry extract). The leaf crude extracts were obtained to significant levels of antioxidant activity that ranged from percentage of inhibition from 33-85.92 %. The water extract and n-butanol extracts showed significant levels of antioxidant activity (85.92 % and 84.99 %) against the DPPH free radical method. In conclusion, this study showed that different polarities crude extracts of D. viscosa comprise a significant amount of phenols plus antioxidant properties and have possibilities of being potential use of the selected species for a natural source of antioxidants.

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