Survey of medicinal plants with potential antidiabetic activity used by villagers in lower Assam districts of North-East, India

Abstract

Diabetes is rapidly emerging as serious and major public health-care problem throughout the world. It is a complex and chronic illness. Apart from currently available different synthetic drugs, many herbal drugs have been recommended for the treatment of diabetic patients. An ethnobotanical study focused on medicinal utility of antidiabetic plants was carried out among the rural village peoples of few lower Assam districts, of North-East, India. A large number of medicinally important plant species are found to be present in the study area. Our survey has reported as many as 41 numbers of medicinal plant species belonging to 31 families. The most cited family was Moraceae, the most widely used plant part was the leaf and the most common mode of administration was juice. All these claims and findings need to be subjected to both phyto-and pharmaco-chemical investigations to assess the claimed activity with the aim of finding new potent antidiabetic drugs.