Alternate therapy of Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) with Nigella (Ranunculaceae)

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is being more incurable due to its complex patho-physiology and failure of conventional anti-diabetic agents to restore the normal architecture and morphology of pancreatic islets and some potential side effects and weight gain. Many agents of plant origin have been used as anti-diabetic agents since ancient time. Among them Nigella sativa L. (Ranunculaceae) is being more popular day by day due to its potential and broad spectrum effects on many diseases but unfortunately, no sufficient scientific data is available. A comprehensive literature (in English only) search was conducted using electronic databases: Medline (1966 to 2010) and EMBASE (1980 to 2010). For a simple search, initially the search terms used were "anti-diabetic agent," and "N. sativa," for each search term separately, and then an advanced search was made by combining all search fields in abstract, key words, or title. Recently, a lot of work has been done for the evaluation of anti-diabetic (against type-II diabetes) effect of N. sativa, significant results have been achieved. However, further studies are required to investigate the anti-diabetic (against type-II diabetes) of N. sativa at molecular levels.