title: The role of medicinal plants in the treatment of diabetes: a systematic review.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Diabetes is a serious metabolic disorder and plenty of medical plants are used in traditional medicines to treat diabetes. These plants have no side effects and many existing medicines are derived from the plants. The purpose of this systematic review is to study diabetes and to summarize the available treatments for this disease, focusing especially on herbal medicine.
  
  
  METHODS
  Required papers about diabetes and effective plants were searched from the databases, including Science direct, PubMed, Wiley, Scopus, and Springer. Keywords in this study are "medicinal plants", "diabetes", "symptom", "herbal", and "treatment". Out of the 490 collected articles (published in the period between 1995 and 2015), 450 were excluded due to non-relevance or lack of access to the original article.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Diabetes is mainly due to oxidative stress and an increase in reactive oxygen species that can have major effects. Many plants contain different natural antioxidants, in particular tannins, flavonoids, C and E vitamins that have the ability to maintain β-cells performance and decrease glucose levels in the blood.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  According to published results, it can be said that medical plants are more affordable and have less side effects compared synthetic drugs, and are more effective in treatment of diabetes mellitus.
authors.affiliation: Student Research Committee, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, Sanandaj, Iran.
authors.forename: Wesam
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Kooti
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, School of Science, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran.
authors.forename: Maryam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Farokhipour
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, School of Science, Islamic Azad University, Ardabil Branch, Ardabil, Iran.
authors.forename: Zahra
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Asadzadeh
authors.affiliation: Student Research Committee, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran.
authors.forename: Damoon
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ashtary-Larky
authors.affiliation: Student Research Committee, Medical Plant Research Center, Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences, Shahrekord, Iran.
authors.forename: Majid
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Asadi-Samani
keywords: diabetes; herbal; medicinal plants; symptom; treatment