Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies
www.pharmpress.com/fact
Focus Alternat Complement Ther©2005 Pharmaceutical Press
Focus Altern Complement Ther 2004; 9: 14
Diabetes is a major concern among Canada’s first nations, with a 12.5% incidence rate in 2002. Conventional medical interventions in the Cree population have yielded limited success. Approaches more in harmony with the Cree nations’ culture and lifestyle may help decrease the morbidity of diabetes. Thus, an ethnobotanical survey was undertaken to explore the traditional materials used to treat type 2 diabetes symptoms.
A list of 15 symptoms related to type 2 diabetes was drafted and ranked by five clinicians/diabetologists. Cree elders and healers were identified by their communities. Twenty-three households were interviewed and surveyed on traditional remedies recommended for treating each of the symptoms listed.
Elders and healers reported the use of 18 different plant species. These plants were ranked for antidiabetic potential according to a calculated importance value. This calculation factored the frequency of citation of each plant, the number of symptoms associated with each plant and the strength of relationship of each symptom to diabetes. Correspondence and clustering analyses were also performed to determine the symptom-based correlation between species and the specificity of association between species and symptoms.
The survey identified a number of plants of the Boreal forest that possess significant potential for the phytotherapeutic treatment and management of type 2 diabetes. Studies are underway to evaluate this antidiabetic potential using cell-based bioassays and animal models of diabetes.
This study was supported by a New Emerging Team Grant from the Institute of Aboriginal Peoples’ Health of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
