Diabetes mellitus type 2 and functional foods of plant origin

Diabetes is the common, exponentially growing, serious human health problem existing globally. Risk factors like genetic predisposition, lack of balanced diet, inappropriate and lethargic lifestyle, overweight, obesity, stress including emotional and oxidative and lack of probiotics in gut are found to be the causing factors either in isolation or in synergy predisposing Diabetes. High blood sugar is a common symptom in all types of diabetes mellitus and the physiological cause of diabetes is lack of hormone Insulin or resistance in function faced by insulin. Low levels of Insulin causes decreased utilization of glucose by body cells, increased mobilization of fats from fat storage cells and depletion of proteins in the tissues of the body, keeping the body in crisis. The functional foods help achieving optimal physiological metabolism and cellular functions helping the body to come out of these crises. The mechanism of the functional foods is envisaged to act via optimizing vitamins, minerals, essential amino acids, prebiotics and probiotics. This paper reviews role of functional foods of plant origin in the regulation of blood sugar in type 2 diabetes mellitus and also discusses some vital patents in this area. The article aims at creating awareness about key food ingredients in order to prevent most acute effects of diabetes mellitus and to greatly delay the chronic effects as well.