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African Medicinal Plants with Antidiabetic Potentials: a Review

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African Medicinal Plants with Antidiabetic Potentials: a Review 354 Reviews African Medicinal Plants with Antidiabetic Potentials: A Review Authors Aminu Mohammed1, 2, Mohammed Auwal Ibrahim 1, 2, Md. Shahidul Islam1 Affiliations 1 Discipline of Biochemistry, School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal (Westville Campus), Durban, South Africa 2 Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria Key words Abstract conducted between January 2000 and July 2013 l" Africa ! on African plants are systematically compiled l" antidiabetic effects Diabetes mellitus is one of the major health prob- with a closer look at some relevant plants from l" diabetes mellitus lems in Africa. The conventional oral synthetic the continentʼs subregions. Plants of the Astera- l" medicinal plants antidiabetic drugs available to manage the dis- ceae and Lamiaceae families are the most investi- l" North Africa l" East Africa ease are costly and not readily affordable to the gated, and West Africa has the highest number of l" West Africa majority of the affected population. Interestingly, investigated plants. Although promising results l" Central Africa the continent is endowed with a tremendous were reported in many cases, unfortunately, only l" Southern Africa number of medicinal plants that have been ex- a few studies reported the partial characteriza- plored for their folkloric treatment of diabetes tion of bioactive principles and/or mechanisms mellitus. Scientific investigations have validated of action. It is hoped that government agencies, the antidiabetic potentials of a number of these pharmaceutical industries, and the scientific medicinal plants but there is no repository with community will have a look at some of these information on these scientifically investigated plants for future research and, if possible, subse- plants as a guide for future research. In this re- quent commercialization. view article, all of the in vivo antidiabetic studies Introduction (720730 diabetics), while Cameroon (517860 di- ! abetics) recorded the highest figure from the cen- Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a heterogeneous group tral region. North Africa had the least number of of metabolic disorders characterized by persistent diabetics among the African subregions with no hyperglycemia [1] and derangement in the me- single nation in the top ten list of African coun- received August 22, 2013 tabolism of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins as a tries with DM [4]. revised Dec. 31, 2013 result of defects in insulin secretion and/or insulin At present, different approaches are used to con- accepted January 1, 2014 action [2]. trol DM using modern synthetic antidiabetic This document was downloaded for personal use only. Unauthorized distribution is strictly prohibited. Bibliography Recent data from the International Diabetes Fed- drugs in addition to lifestyle modification. This in- DOI http://dx.doi.org/ eration (IDF) indicates that DM affects over 366 cludes sulphonylureas (glibenclamide), glucosi- 10.1055/s-0033-1360335 million people worldwide and this is likely to in- dase inhibitors (acarbose), and biguanide (met- Published online February 17, crease to 552 million or even more by the year formin). However, these synthetic oral hypoglyce- 2014 2030 [3]. In Africa, more than 14 million people mic agents have characteristic profiles of serious Planta Med 2014; 80: 354–377 © Georg Thieme Verlag KG have diabetes, accounting for about 4.3% of adults side effects, which include hypoglycemia, weight Stuttgart · New York · and is responsible for about 401276 deaths in gain, gastrointestinal discomfort, nausea, liver ISSN 0032‑0943 2012 in the region [4]. West Africa recorded the and heart failure, and diarrhea [5] in addition to Correspondence highest number of DM cases with Nigeria (3.2 being rather costly and not affordable by the ma- Dr. Md. Shahidul Islam million diabetics) and Côte dʼIvoire (421023 dia- jority of African populations. These limitations School of Life Sciences betics) occupying first and second positions, re- coupled with an exponential increase in the prev- University of KwaZulu-Natal (Westville Campus) spectively. In Southern Africa, South Africa tops alence of DM motivate researchers to scientifi- Durban 4000 the list (2.0 million diabetics) followed by the cally validate the folkloric use of a number of anti- South Africa Democratic Republic of Congo (737000 diabet- diabetic African medicinal plants as possible al- Phone: + 27312608717 Fax: + 273 12607942 ics). Kenya was listed as the fifth country in Africa ternative therapies. This is partly because herbs [email protected] and the first from the eastern region of Africa and natural products form an important compo- Mohammed A et al. African Medicinal Plants… Planta Med 2014; 80: 354–377 Reviews 355 Fig. 2 Subregional distributions of investigated African medicinal plants with antidiabetic effects. pharmaceutical industries may use this as a possible guide for fu- ture research. Fig. 1 Map of Africa showing the different subregions. (Color figure avail- Results and Discussion able online only.) ! A map of Africa indicating the subregions of the continent as used in this review is presented in l" Fig. 1. A total of 185 plants species from 75 families in Africa have been investigated for antidiabetic nent of the health care delivery system in African countries [6]. effects. The information obtained on these plants includes scien- According to the World Health Organization (WHO) [7], 80% of tific and common names, families, parts of the plant used, solvent the population in many African countries depend almost entirely used, and whether the crude extracts or fractions were used in on traditional medicines, herbal medicines in particular, for their the course of investigation. From the results, plants from the primary health care needs [8,9]. This is attributed to the per- West African subregion account for 51.69% of all the plants inves- ceived effectiveness of the plant-based therapies as well as the tigated for antidiabetic potentials in Africa over the period men- availability of these medicinal plants because the continent ac- tioned (l" Fig. 2). More than 90% of all documented plants from counts for about 25% of the total number of higher plants in the this region emanate from Nigeria, with few data from Ghana, world where more than 5400 medicinal plants were reported to Senegal, Benin, Togo, and Côte dʼIvoire (l" Table 1). Reports on have over 16300 medicinal uses [10]. the antidiabetic effects of North African plants account for In Africa, herbal medicines are usually provided by a traditional 21.91% (l" Fig. 2) and originated from Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, healer, who utilizes natural products in curing many diseases. Tunisia, Sudan, and Libya (l" Table 3). On the other hand, 12.92% They have different local methods to diagnose DM in their pa- of antidiabetic African plants were reported from Southern Africa tients, as they do not rely on laboratory investigations. This is (l" Fig. 2) with most of the studies originating from South Africa achieved through identifying symptoms like frequent urination, (l" Table 4). The remaining parts, East (l" Table 2) and Central sexual dysfunction, swollen legs, hands and stomach, obesity, fa- (l" Table 5) Africa, recorded 7.87 and 5.61%, respectively, of Afri- tigue, and profuse sweating during the consultation process. In can medicinal plants with antidiabetic effects. The results also in- some cases, they direct the patients to urinate on locally pre- dicated that plants from the Asteraceae and Lamiaceae families pared formulations and return after a couple of days with the re- received a lot of attention in all parts of Africa (l" Fig. 3). On the This document was downloaded for personal use only. Unauthorized distribution is strictly prohibited. sults of a diagnosis. At present, DM is among the diseases which other hand, analysis of the investigated parts of the plant indi- are most extensively treated with traditional medicines using cated that the leaf was the most scientifically investigated part medicinal plants. This is evident by the propensity of the ethno- (l" Fig. 4). botanical surveys for medicinal plants used for the management More importantly, promising results were reported in many of DM from different African subregions that include West [11, cases but, unfortunately, only a few studies reported detailed 12], East [13–15], North [16–18], Southern [19,20], and Central characterization of bioactive principles. Data available indicated Africa [21]. Interestingly, scientific investigations have confirmed that only six plants from northern and two from western regions the efficacy of a number of these plant-derived formulations on received partial characterization of a possible active ingredient DM, but presently there is no comprehensive review and/or re- that could be responsible for their antidiabetic effects (l" Table 6). pository that exists in the literature of these scientifically investi- In order to provide a full view of the antidiabetic potentials of gated African antidiabetic medicinal plants that cover the whole these African medicinal plants, the scientifically investigated me- of Africa. In this article, we conducted an exhaustive review of all dicinal plants are categorized into subregions (l" Fig. 1) and dis- scientifically investigated African antidiabetic medicinal plants cussed more thoroughly. The discussions are based on the subre- whose results have been published between January 2000 and gions and the criteria used for highlighting
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