[Promising source of micronutrients for specialized foods with modified carbohydrate profile: traditional medicine...

Worldwide experience of Traditional medicine (TM) has been successfully applied to the development of modern standardized herbal medicines. Mainly researchers are guided by local sources of medicinal plants and traditional medical systems. TM experience is also used in the search of plants considered as sources of biologically active substances (BAS) and food ingredients. The steady increase in the incidence of type 2 diabetes, makes clear the need for research of domestic plant sources of BAS (with a proven carbohydrate metabolism effect) to create modern specialized foods. This article proves the feasibility of using TM experience of Russia and some neighboring European countries (Belarus, Ukraine) to develop optimized compositions for specialized food products for patients with type 2 diabetes. For reliable identification of the most promising plants, 550 traditional antidiabetic herbal formulations of 66 traditional recipe directories were studied in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. It revealed 37 species of plants included to more than 20% of all bibliographical sources, and 13 plants included to more than 50% of prescription directories. The 3 most popular are bilberry leaves, leaffruit of common bean, great nettle leaves.