Ethnopharmacological field study of the plants used to treat type 2 diabetes among the Cakchiquels in Guatemala.

BACKGROUND

Type 2 diabetes is characterized by tissue resistance to the action of insulin, combined with a relative deficiency in insulin secretion. In Guatemala, type 2 diabetes results in significant mortality rates. The low incomes of the indigenous population results in the use of alternative therapies such as medicinal plants to treat the illness. We could not find any previous study related to the use of medicinal plants to treat diabetes in Guatemala. The aim of this work is to determine the most effective plant species used in traditional medicine to treat type 2 diabetes.

METHODS

We performed an ethnopharmacological field study among the Cakchiquels of Chimaltenango to select the most prominent plants used to treat the disease. Type 2 diabetic patients from their community health centers were interviewed using structured questionnaires. Two mathematical tools were used to identify potential plant species: the Disease Consensus Index and the Use Value. International databases, including SCOPUS, PubMed, and Google Scholar, were used to identify whether the plants with the highest scores were known to elicit hypoglycemic effects.

RESULTS

After analyzing the data, we can propose the following plants as the most prominent among the Cakchiquels of Chimaltenango to treat type 2 diabetes: Hamelia patens Jacq., Neurolaena lobata (L.) R.Br.ex Cass., Solanum americanum Mill., Croton guatemalensis Lotsy, and Quercus peduncularis Née.

CONCLUSIONS

The Cakchiquel patients interviewed did not understand type 2 diabetes; however, they associated the onset of their disease with a negative emotion, such as shock, sadness or anger. Despite changes in lifestyle, influences of advertising, the availability of innovative treatments and the use of oral hypoglycemic treatments provided by health facilities serving indigenous communities, the Cakchiquel continue to use medicinal plants as adjunctive treatment. While they are unaware whether the plants can cause additional harm, they consider their consumption beneficial because they feel better. There were 11 plants identified with UVs greater than 0.5 and high DCIs; from these 64% of the plants have been identified as having hypoglycemic effects; this finding supports the traditional selection by the Cakchiquels of medicinal plants to treat T2D.