Abstract

GYMNEMA: A HERBAL MEDICINE FOR MANAGEMENT OF DIABETES MELLITUS

Priti B. Savant*, Manjusha S. Kareppa and Pawan N. Karwa

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Abstract

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a disease that arises all the world and about 30 million or more than 30 million people are affected by diabetics are there in the world. The occurrence of diabetes disease is growing for the reason that female diabetics to have diabetic children. The prevalence of diabetes persons above 40 year of age is higher. Females especially the married ones are more susceptible to to get this disease. Obesity dietary factors and heredity are the other contributory factors for diabetes. Alcoholic beverages increases appetite, encourage increases weight and when taken in excess damage pancreas and thereby increase the chance of diabetes. Gymnema or gurmar, to use its common Hindi name, means sugar destroyer, because it was noted that chewing the fresh leaves temporarily destroyed the taste of sugar in the mouth. Gymnema is a herbal medicine used for treatment of diabetis from centuries as a herbal medicine. This plant also used to control obesity form of gymnema tea. It is potent anti-diabetic plant and used for ayurvedic and homeopathic system of medicine. It is used in management and treatment of asthma, Eye related complaints and Family planning and snake bite. The substances used to in treatment of diabetes i.e. Diabetes mellitus are known as antidiabetics (Greek : dia : through and bainein : to go). Thus, diabetes is the inability of the body to utilize glucose, due to failure of pancreas to secret insulin in sufficient quantity. This review emphases on the diabetes mellitus and gymnema a herbal drug in the management of diabetis Apart from several synthetic antidiabetic, the natural oral antidiabetic drug are gymnema (gymnema sylrestre). This review emphases on overview on diabetes mellitus and gymnema a herbal medicine used for management of diabetes, its taxonomical classification, plant description, synonyms, vernacular name, biological source, chemical constituents, geographical distribution, pharmacological uses and mechanism of action of gymnema etc.

Keywords: Gymnema, Sugar destroyer, Diabetes mellitus, Gymnema sylvestre, Insulin, Blood sugar.