A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY ON THE ALPHA AMYLASE INHIBITORY POTENTIAL OF INDIGENOUS MEDICINAL PLANTS

Abstract

India has a rich plethora of medicinal plants which have been used as a source in traditional healing system from times immemorial. Phytotherapy is believed to be more efficient as it provides a holistic approach for treatment of various diseases. Though the plant based, herbal medicine system continues to play an important role in health management with more than 80% of the world’s population relying on traditional medicine for their primary health care. An extensive research on medicinal plants and natural products is ongoing globally to find holistic treatment methods for many lifestyle disorders like Diabetes mellitus. A search for antidiabetic remedies from plants and herbs is done with the hope of discovering new natural products that can be used or developed into safe, inexpensive and effective antidiabetic remedies. One such class of natural compounds isplant alpha amylase inhibitors which pose a new hope in treatment of type-2 diabetes as they help in reducing post prandial hyperglycemia. It is now a global health imperative to search for these novel alpha amylase inhibitors from plants. The present study is thus, aimed at identifying the alpha amylase inhibitory potential of about 30 indigenous medicinal plants with known antidiabetic activities.