(BQ) Part 2 book “Anti-diabetes mellitus plants - Active principles, mechanisms of action and sustainable utilization” has contents: Polyherbal and combination medicines for diabetes mellitus, methods to assess anti-diabetes mellitus activity of plants, sustainable utilization of anti-diabetes mellitus plants. | 4 Polyherbal and Combination Medicines for Diabetes Mellitus Introduction Numerous polyherbal formulations are in use in different parts of the world in traditional medicine from ancient time onward to control or treat diabetes. They are also used in well-organized traditional systems of medicine such as Ayurveda, Siddha, and Chinese medicine. Even in the recent years, there has been a great interest toward phytomedicines including polyherbal formulations not only for diabetes but also for other diseases like arthritis and cancer; since the shortcomings of conventional chemical entity medicines have started getting more apparent, many anti-diabetes mellitus (anti-DM) herbal formulations available in the markets are immensely used by diabetic patients on the advice of physicians in India and elsewhere (Srivastava et al. 2012). When products from more than one herb (plant) are used in a medicinal preparation, it is generally considered as a polyherbal formulation. In most of the cases, products from many plants (along with or without nonplant materials) are used as ingredients in a polyherbal formulation. These polyherbal formulations contain products from plant species as ingredients with specific methods of preparation. Polyherbal formulations could be better than single chemical entity drugs in many medical conditions. The multivalent and multitarget actions of mixtures of phytochemicals could provide therapeutic superiority compared with single compound drugs in the treatment of DM. Now, it is increasingly recognized that, in many complex disease conditions (., DM, arthritis, liver diseases, and old-age-related diseases), combination therapy is more suitable compared with monosubstance therapy. It is considered that complex physiological and pathophysiological processes of the body can be influenced more effectively with less adverse side effects by a combination of several low-dose compounds than by a single high-dose compound. Low doses of several .
