Using polyphenols as a relevant therapy to diabetes and its complications, a review

Abstract

Diabetes is currently a worldwide health concern. Hyperglycemia, hypertension, obesity, and oxidative stress are the major risk factors that inevitably lead to all the complications from diabetes. These complications severely impact the quality of life of patients, and they can be managed, reduced, or even reverted by several polyphenols, plant extracts and foods rich in these compounds. The goal of this review is to approach diabetes not as a single condition but rather an interconnected combination of risk factors and complications. This work shows that polyphenols have multi target action and effects and they have been systematically proven to be relevant in the reduction of each risk factor and improvement of associated complication.

Keywords:

• Complications
• diabetes
• polyphenols
• risk factors

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia through the CQM Base Fund – UIDB/00674/2020, and Programmatic Fund – UIDP/00674/2020, and by ARDITI-Agência Regional para o Desenvolvimento da Investigação Tecnologia e Inovação, through the project M1420-01-0145-FEDER-000005 – Centro de Química da Madeira – CQM+ (Madeira 14-20 Program). João Serina would also like to acknowledge FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia for the PhD grant 2020.05328.bd.