G. Ahmad

Aligarh Muslim University | AMU · Department of Ilmul Advia

Traditional medicines claim to possess many drugs for the management of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Scores of plant drugs have been investigated and reported to possess hypoglycemic effect. In India, more than 200 plant drugs mostly based on animal studies have been reported to possess antihyperglycemic effect and about two dozen such drugs have been extensively investigated. Several drug formulations including Diabecon (Himalaya), HypoNIDD (Charak Pharma), Dabur Madhurakshak (Dabur), Madhumehari granules (Baidyanath) Diabeat (Hamdard laboratories) and Qus Ziabetus (Dawakhana Tibbiya College), Nushkur (Hasni Pharmacy) etc. are also available in the Indian market. But surprisingly most of the available drugs cannot be used independently (as monotherapy) in the management of diabetes probably because they neither produce reproducible effect nor can manage the established diabetic patients, independently. They are mostly used in prediabetic patients, newly diagnosed patients or as an adjuvant with other allopathic oral hypoglycemic agents.

A few years back BGR-34 and IME 9 were introduced in the market. Although these formulations received a tremendous response, however, they are mostly thought to act in a supporting capacity. They have been reported to reduce the dose of a certain allopathic drug but their role as an independent hypoglycemic agent to manage the establish cases of diabetes has not been ascertained. Indian Ayurvedic and Unani pharmacopeia also have mentioned many drugs for the control of diabetes but whether they are as effective as an allopathic oral hypoglycemic agent is difficult to affirm.

In spite of having a treasure of potential drugs why traditional systems failed to develop an effective antidiabetic product?

Both the terms are frequently used interchangeably but at occasions they are also used independently for relatively different meanings. Some of the plant drugs are now being projected as adjuvant/concomitant therapy along with allopathic drugs. This may give a new dimension but will have its own implications. Therefore both the terms should be categorized for their specific meanings.

Various traditional medicines practiced in different parts of the world have their own theory and philosophy. They use the research methodology which is somehow different from that of the modern medicine to carry out a scientific study. Practically they use the methods and tools from the modern sciences but evolve their own methodology and the design for research projects. But when it comes to the publication most of the journals of modern sciences with relatively high impact factor do not accept them as such because of certain deviation from the paradigm of research that is in vogue. The journals of traditional medicine on the other hand have very low scoring of impact factor and many researchers hesitate to publish their works in such a journal. A young researcher is frequently lured towards the journals having high impact factor. In this process he makes changes in his/her manuscript which are not appreciable by view point of the traditional medicine. Thus the theories of traditional medicine are frequently compromised and the essence of theory and principle of a traditional medicine is not always maintained in these publications. If the same paper with all its attribute and essence of traditional medicine is published in journal devoted to traditional medicine, the author has to compromise with low impact factor. In certain other cases main stream journals reject the papers of traditional researchers on certain technical grounds for example many journals insist on chemical characterization and isolation of the plant material that is biologically active. They do not accept the whole extract of plant drug rather they ask for isolated compound. Most of the traditional medicines on the other hand argue that whole plant drug or its part such as leaf; root etc should be used in therapy as they induce biological effect in their entirety and also ensure the safety.

Such a situation requires that a separate mechanism should be developed to determine the impact factor of the research papers of traditional medicines. This will encourage the researchers of traditional medicines to publish their work in the journals devoted to traditional medicine without any major modification.

Most of the traditional medicines are branded as complementary or alternative medicine. What these terms actually stand for and what is difference between the two?