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Complications and Prevalence of Diabetes

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Diabetes is a chronic disease where in there is high sugar level in blood either due to insufficient insulin production or to the inability of cells to respond to insulin. Diabetes can cause a lot of long-term complications that affect different parts of the body. It can cause eye complications such as glaucoma, cataracts, diabetic retinopathy, and blindness. Foot complications that can lead to amputation can also result from uncontrolled diabetes. Skin infections and disorders are more common to people with diabetes. It also causes heart problems, ischemia, stroke, kidney failure, and nerve damage. Diabetes during pregnancy can also cause birth defects (Nordqvist, 2010). Diabetes can affect any person. Type I diabetes occurs equally …show more content…

The most studied plant families for their hypoglycemic effects are Leguminoseae, Araliaceae, Liliaceae, Cucurbitaceae, Moraceae, Asteracea, Rosaceae, Euphorbiaceae, and Lamiaceae (Chauhan, 2010). Bioactive drugs isolated from different plants having hypoglycemic effects showed antidiabetic activity. Most of these plants are more potent than known synthetic oral hypoglycemic agents (Chauhan, 2010). Therefore, herbal plants have potential hypoglycemic activity that should be studied in order to produce diabetes drugs that are safe, economical, and effective. Gynura Procumbens Gynura procumbens (Lour.) Merr. belongs to the family Asteraceae. It is locally known as Sambung Nyawa or Sabungai. It is an evergreen shrub with medicinal properties widely distributed in South East Asia. The leaves of Gynura procumbens are ovate-elliptic or lanceolate. Leaf size ranges from 3.5 to 8 cm long and 0.8 to 3.5 cm wide. The flowering heads are panicled, narrow, yellow, and 1 to 1.5 cm long (Sekar, 2014). It has been used by rural communities in Malaysia, Thailand, and Philippines to treat various ailments including diabetes. This plant is reported to be useful for hypertension, anti-inflammation, anti-herpes simplex virus, prevention of rheumatism, and treatment of eruptive fevers, kidney troubles, colon cancer, hemorrhoids and diabetes. The leaves of this

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