Sixty percent of the world’s population uses medicines derived from plants to treat their ailments, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Diabetic herbal medicine, for the most part, is used around the world because it has lesser side effects and a lower cost. Many of the herbal medicines used are traditional and have a long history of use.

Many conventional drugs have been derived from the molecules of medicinal plants. Metformin for example was developed based on the use of Galegaofficinalis which is rich in guanidine, a component that lowers blood glucose. However, out of the 400 traditional plant treatments known, only a small few have received any kind of scientific or medical evaluation. Therefore, it is unknown how many herbal cures may be out there.

The World Health Organization Expert Committee on diabetes recommended that traditional diabetes herbal medicine be further investigated. Following this, a study …