Ethnopharmacological Insights into Diabetes Management: Exploring Medicinal Flora of Shivalik range of Himalaya in Uttarakhand

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic metabolic disorder which is commonly found life-threatening disease and it continuously reducing the life expectancy. It is characterized by hyperglycaemia (raised blood sugar level) resulting from defects in insulin secretion, action, or both. Since thousands of years, medicinal plants are being used by our ancestors for the prevention, treatment or even cure the diabetes mellitus. Utilization of these herbal plants is increasing rapidly last two to three decades due to their lesser toxicity and cost effectiveness property as compared to synthetic drugs. In this review, approximately 30 medicinal plants were described which are native to India and traditionally used by the people living in shivalik range of Himalaya in Uttarakhand (specially Dehradun & Haridwar) for the treatment of diabetes mellitus. The data about these plants was collected from science direct, PubMed, web of science, scopus, mdpi, google scholar and different other search engines and websites. This review was conferred in a systematic way as it includes botanical name, family, vernacular name, parts used and pharmacological uses of plants in a tabulated form. There are various scientific evidences behind the uses of some medicinal plants which have been mentioned along with the summary of individual medicinal plant. In this review, all the plants and herbs are easily available in these regions of Uttarakhand and local people traditionally uses these plants as vegetable, seasoning, flavouring and usually consume as a part of their diet. There are some limitations of phytotherapy which limit it to completely replace the allopathic therapy as less bioavailability, less rate of absorption and slow rate of dissolution. But by using various advanced dosage forms (phytosomes, neosomes, liposomes, nanoparticles, nanobubbles, nano diamonds, nanosphere etc.) and method of delivery (various invasive and non-invasive methods) which can bypass these all problems associated with the potency and efficacy of phytochemicals.