Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a metabolic disorder characterized by chronic hyperglycemia together with disturbances in the metabolism of carbohydrates, proteins and fat, which in general results from an insulin availability and need imbalance. In a great number of patients, marketed anti-glycemic agents have shown poor effectiveness in maintaining a long-term glycemic control, thus being associated with severe adverse effects and leading to an emerging interest in natural compounds (e.g., essential oils and other secondary plant metabolites, namely, flavonoid-rich compounds) as a novel approach for prevention, management and/or treatment of either non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (T2DM, type 2 DM) and/or Metabolic Syndrome (MS). In this review, some of these promising glucose-lowering agents will be comprehensively discussed.

Essential oils are odorant liquid oily products consisting of a complex mixture of volatile compounds obtained from a plant raw material. They have been increasingly proven to act as potential natural agents in the treatment of several human conditions, including diabetes mellitus (DM). DM is a metabolic disorder characterized by chronic hyperglycemia closely related to carbohydrate, protein and fat metabolism disturbances. In order to explore novel approaches for the management of DM our group proposes the encapsulation of sucupira essential oil, obtained from the fruits of the Brazilian plants of the genus Pterodon, in nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs), a second generation of lipid nanoparticles which act as new controlled drug delivery system (DDS). Encapsulation was performed by hot high-pressure homogenization (HPH) technique and the samples were then analyzed by dynamic light scattering (DLS) for mean average size and polydispersity index (PI) and by electrophoretic light scattering (ELS) for zeta potential (ZP), immediately after production and after 24 h of storage at 4 °C. An optimal sucupira-loaded NLC was found to consist of 0.5% (m/V) sucupira oil, 4.5% (m/V) of Kollivax^® GMS II and 1.425% (m/V) of TPGS (formulation no. 6) characterized by a mean particle size ranging from 148.1 ± 0.9815 nm (0 h) to 159.3 ± 9.539 nm (at 24 h), a PI from 0.274 ± 0.029 (0 h) to 0.305 ± 0.028 (24 h) and a ZP from −0.00236 ± 0.147 mV (at 0 h) to 0.125 ± 0.162 (at 24 h). The encapsulation efficiency and loading capacity were 99.98% and 9.6%, respectively. The optimized formulation followed a modified release profile fitting the first order kinetics, over a period of 8 h. In vitro cytotoxicity studies were performed against Caco-2 cell lines, for which the cell viability above 90% confirmed the non-cytotoxic profile of both blank and sucupira oil-loaded NLC.

Diabetes is a complex disease characterized by hyperglycemia, together with polyuria, polydipsia, and polyphagia. While Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) results from genetic, environmental, or immune dysfunction factors leading to pancreatic β-cell destruction depriving the organism from endogenous insulin, Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is characterized by peripheral insulin resistance. Depending on the type of diabetes mellitus and drug mechanism to study, the animal model should be carefully selected among the wide variety of the currently available ones. This review discusses the most common animal models currently employed to study T1DM and T2DM. Moreover, an overview on the administration routes that could be used is also discussed.

This chapter examines the properties of essential oils and their increasing use in both food industry and medicine, to Essential oils (EOs) toxicological profile, and to new controlled delivery systems developed to overcome some issues related to EOs physicochemical properties and reported toxicological effects. Since EOs represent a “green” alternative to foodstuff, pharmaceutical, medical, cosmetic, perfume, and agriculture industries, there are great efforts in order to overcome some physicochemical and toxicological related issues, such as their high sensitivity to oxygen, light, temperature and pH, high lipophilicity, and some toxicity reported. EOs have been increasingly integrated in numerous in vitro and in vivo assays in order to further investigate their physicochemical properties, biological activities, mechanisms of action, and toxicological profile. Although complicated taking into account the huge variability in EOs’ composition and the affecting environmental factors, it remains relevant to do a toxicity profiling for each known EO or at least for selected major isolated constituents.