AN UPDATE REVIEW OF MOROCCAN MEDICINAL PLANTS USED TO TREAT DIABETES

Traditional plants are used in Morocco to treat different diseases including diabetes mellitus.Diabetes is a serious health problem and a major cause of mortality.The purpose of this review consist to report all herbal medicines, their part used, the traditional uses, and the frequency of citation based on ethnobotanical studies finding in different regions of Morocco.Several databases including PubMed, Springer, Science Direct, Scopus, Google Scholar, Hindawi, and Taylor & Francis are used to determine ethnobotanical medicinal plants used against diabetes.Results revealed the identification of 206 plants from 64 families belonging to several botanical families including Lamiaceae, Fabaceae, Asteraceae, Apiaceae.Trigonella foenum-graecum, Olea europaea, Artemisia herba-alba, Citrullus colocynthis, Nerium oleander and Salvia officinalishave been reported with a highest percentage of frequency occurrence. Some of these plants presented an efficient in vitro andin vivohypoglycemic effect. Indeed, the antidiabetic mechanism of action is not full understood. However, the antidiabetic activities of luteolin, oleuropein, chlorogenic acid, and apigeninisolatedare nowstudied. These compounds induce the antidiabetic effect viathe inhibition of the PKB/AKT pathway, and PPARγ expression and the activation of AMPK and PI3K-GSK3 pathways. These molecules present a potential as an alternative compounds in diabetes therapeutic strategy and further studies should be performed to elaborate their effects in clinical trials.