A b s t r a c tDiabetes mellitus represents a spectrum of metabolic disorder, which has become one of the major public health concerns worldwide. Diabetes mellitus has emerged as a third leading killer after cancer and largest number of diabetics in world second to China. Herbal medicine for treating chronic diseases, especially diabetes has gained an exponential growth in the last few years an developing and developed countries are adopting herbal drugs for treatment of diabetes mellitus. The World Health Organization (WHO) has listed 21,000 plants, which are used for medicinal purposes around the world. The WHO has defined herbal medicin labelled medicinal products that contain aerial or underground parts of the plants or other plant material or combination thereof as active ingredients, whether in crude state or as plant preparations. This review attempts to present the pro properties, reported in the literature with proper categorization according to the botanical name, family, parts used, chemical constituents, and its other uses. Relevant medical databases and websites were searched. To qu confirmed hypoglycemic potential. Other criteria for inclusion are: published in English and peer glycemic control, natural or keywords or combination of them. A total of 151 herbs belonging to 72 families were outlined in this review.

Background: Diakure is an indigenously prepared hypoglycemic polyherbal formulation, containing mixture of Vetiveria zizanoides (root), Hemidesmus indicus (rhizome), Strychnos potatorum (seed), Salacia reticulata (bark), Holarhena antidysenterica (seed), Cassia auriculata (bark), Trigonella graecum (seed) and Acacia catechu (bark) and each individual herb has scientific background in treating diabetes. This study aimed to perform pharmacognostical evaluation, preliminary phytochemical evaluation, standardization, heavy metal analysis, pesticidal residual analysis and antimicrobial assay of DiaKure. Materials and Methods: 100 g of the powder mixture of all eight herbs mentioned above was boiled with 900 ml water for 30 min to produce the polyherbal mixture and this mixture was used for performing various tests. Results: Organoleptic characters and macroscopic characters such as colour, odour, taste, size and shape are evaluated under pharmacognostical evaluations and ash values, extractive values and loss on drying are considered under standardisation parameters and are reported. Phytochemical screening of the extract revealed the presence of alkaloids, tannins, saponins, flavonoids, steroids, glycoside and sugars. The formulation has normal limits of heavy metal and pesticidal residue. Also, the aqueous mixture, during its antimicrobial assay, does not exhibit any antibacterial or anti-fungal activities. Conclusion: The result of this study validates the use of aqueous extract of DiaKure in ethnomedicine, favouring the isolation of antidiabetic agents from the extract of DiaKure. Since the study was conducted in a controlled and authenticated manner, all the evaluation measures used in the study can be used for the standardization of the above-said formulation.

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