This Research Topic is part of a series:
Action Mechanisms of Traditional Medicinal Plants used to Control Type 2 Diabetes or Conditions of Metabolic SyndromeTraditional medicines worldwide are facing a challenge to treat metabolic conditions that have existed clinically for a long time. However, with the changes in lifestyle (lack of exercise, bad nutrition) and increase in life expectancy, these conditions are growing in epidemic proportions and threatening the lives of millions of people. Although many of the traditional systems have recognized these problems for a long time, currently chronic metabolic diseases play an important role in these systems because the advances in sciences allow a better understanding and labelling of the diseases that had been previously incorporated in the traditional systems.
Among the important metabolic diseases, we have the cluster of conditions (increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist, and abnormal cholesterol or triglyceride levels) that when occur together are called; Metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes; mainly defined by insulin resistance in the presence of abnormal insulin secretion.
Although these diseases in itself generally do not cause mortality (in the short term) when they are unattended the side effects can cause deaths in the mean a long term). Epidemiological evidence, observed globally highlights that patients with comorbidities like, obesity, type 2 diabetes or hypertension have a high risk of intubation or death when they are infected with the Sars-Cov2 virus. This is probably related to the high level of inflammation they already have, as consequence of the mentioned diseases, which is incremented by the Covid-19 infection.
Medicinal plants are widely used throughout the world especially in developing countries to treat the conditions of metabolic syndrome or type 2 diabetes. The pathophysiological conditions engage several metabolic pathways which involve hundreds of enzymes, proteins, co-factors, various cells, tissues, and organs especially liver, pancreas, gut, muscle, adipose tissue, and kidney. In this context, it is important to understand the mechanisms of action underlying the role of medicinal plants in controlling metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes in relation to such action mechanisms. Numerous studies are published critically assessing the pharmacological effects or clinical efficacy of such medicinal plants and their preparations as well as on bioactive constituents from them. However, numerous conceptual and methodological challenges remain with regards to how to assess such pharmacological effects or clinical efficacy and how this contributes to developing an evidence base for such uses. For this Research Topic, we envision works that contribute to improved methodologies and practices in ethnopharmacological research as well as original contributions, which add to our understanding of these medicinal plants and include a critical assessment of methods and approaches to study them. The general principles of such methods have been spelled out in the ‘Four Pillars of best Practice’ and with this Research Topic, we wish to contribute to further developing them specifically in the context of these diseases.
We welcome studies from all regions, using a wide range of approaches including the side effects of the diseases.
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All the manuscripts submitted to the collection will need to fully comply with the
Four Pillars of Best Practice in Ethnopharmacology (you can freely download the full version
here).