Recent Advances in Synthetic α-Glucosidase Inhibitors

Over the past few years, the number of people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes has increased owing to an unhealthy diet, a limited amount of exercise, and obesity. The search for novel and efficient antidiabetes agents has become an urgent task for scientists. Among the antidiabetes drugs, α-glucosidase inhibitor drugs have been proven to have many advantages over other drugs, and therefore, a large number of new compounds as α-glucosidase inhibitors has recently been reported. In this review, we summarize these newly found α-glucosidase inhibitors and their structure-activity relationships in antidiabetic studies and provide better structures for α-glucosidase inhibitors or even preclinical candidates. Beyond that, some enlightening strategies for the synthesis of relevant compounds are highlighted.