A Review on Molecular Mechanism of Flavonoids as Antidiabetic Agents

Abstract

The development of drugs possessing anti-diabetic activities is a long pursued goal in drug discovery. It has been shown that deregulated insulin mediated signaling, oxidative stress, obesity, and β-cell dysfunction are the main factors responsible for the disease. With the advent of new and more powerful screening assays and prediction tools, the idea of a drug that can effectively treat diabetes by targeting different pathways has re-bloomed. Current anti-diabetic therapy is based on synthetic drugs that very often have side effects. For this reason, there is an instantaneous need to develop or search new alternatives. Recently, more attention is being paid to the study of natural products. Their huge advantage is that they can be ingested in everyday diet. Here, we discuss various causes, putative targets, and treatment strategies, mechanistic aspects as well as structural features with a particular focus on naturally occurring flavonoids as promising starting points for anti-diabetic led development.