Antidiabesity Middle Eastern Medicinal Plants and Their Action Mechanisms

Over the last four decades, the escalation in diabetes and obesity rates has become epidemic all over the world. Diabesity describes the strong link between T2D and obesity. It correlates deeper with the elevated risks of developing cardiovascular disease hypertension, stroke, and several malignancies.
Therapeutic usage of medicinal plants and natural products in the treatment of diabetes and obesity have long been known to physicians of Greco-Arab and Islamic medicine. Improved versions of their abundant medicinal plant-based formulations are at present some of the most popular herbal treatments used. Preclinical and clinical data along with their bioactive constituents are now available for medicinal plants; justifying the traditionally known therapeutic uses of products derived from them, for the prevention and cure of obesity-related T2D, and other health problems. The aim of this review is to systematise published scientific data dealing with the efficiency of active ingredients or extracts from Middle Eastern medicinal plants and diet, in the management of diabesity and its complications. Publications describing the medicinal plants and diet used in the management of T2D, obesity, and their complications were searched in Google Scholar, Medline, and Pubmed. The used keywords were medicinal plants or herbals in combination with obesity, diabetes, diabetes, or nephropathy. More than 130 medicinal plants were identified to target diabesity and its complications. The antidiabetes and antiobesity effects and action mechanisms of these plants are discussed here. These include the regulation of appetite, thermogenesis, lipid absorption, lipolysis; pancreatic lipase activity, adipogenesis; glucose absorption in the intestine, insulin secretion, glucose transporters, gluconeogenesis, and epigenetic mechanisms.