ABSTRACT:
Chhattisgarh ranks third in forest wealth in India and also known for its native tribal population. Tribal people know about the medicinal importance of locally available plants and their usage for the curing of various diseases. Diabetes is a metabolic disease, which is characterized by abnormally high glucose level in blood and urine. According to World Health Organization (WHO), 9% of world's adult population has diabetes and the percentage is accelerating. Many medicinal plants have been used for the treatment of diabetes among the peoples of Chhattisgart. Ethnobotanical survey was conducted during 2014-2015 in Mahasamund, Raigarh, Jashpur and Surguja districts of Chhattisgarh state with the help of semi structured questionnaire-cum-schedule and through in-depth interview of local healers. The study was approved by the Institution Ethics Committee (IEC) for Human Research, P. Ravishankar Shukla University, Raipur. We have documented the traditional medical knowledge, knowledge of various types of plants and also recorded various herbal formulations recommended for the treatment of diabetes. 25 herbal formulations have been recorded, which include 33 medicinal plant species belonging to 20 different plant families for curing diabetes. Most of these plant species belonged to Fabaceae family for curing diabetes followed by Meliaceae, Rutaceae, Apocynaceae, Combretaceae, Solanaceae and others. Leaves were the most used plant part in the herbal formulations followed by root, fruit, bark and others for curing diabetes. The work is currently under progress to pinpoint the exact phytochemical(s) that could be implicated in the process of control and cure of Diabetes. This work is promising and might help in the discovery of potential therapeutic molecule(s) for the control and cure of Diabetes.