Traditional dietary adjuncts for the treatment of diabetes mellitus.

Before the introduction of insulin in 1922 treatments for diabetes mellitus relied mainly on dietary measures including traditional medicines derived from plants. During this century the dietary recommendations for diabetes have turned full circle, with the renewed appreciation that carbohydrate-rich high-fibre diets can benefit the control of glycaemia and improve certain diabetic complications (Nutrition Sub-committee of the British Diabetic Association, 1980; Mann, 1984; Vinik & Jenkins, 1988). Traditional plant medicines for diabetes, which were abandoned in occidental societies as conventional drugs emerged, are now receiving renewed interest as adjuncts to conventional treatments and as potential sources of new hypoglycaemic compounds (Day & Bailey, 1988~ ; Day, 1990). Most of these traditional medicines are prepared from herbs, spices and plants which do not form part of the normal diet (Day & Bailey, 1988b; Bailey & Day, 1989). However, several common components of the diet are traditionally recommended for regular consumption, and some are additionally taken as infusions, decoctions or alcoholic extracts. The present review considers the dietary adjuncts which are used as traditional treatments for diabetes in the UK (Table 1). and describes studies to evaluate their efficacy.