Avaliação da interação entre plantas medicinais e medicamentos utilizados por pacientes portadores de diabetes mellitus do programa Hiperdia Minas em Governador Valadares - MG

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic condition that affects around 463 million adults worldwide. The main treatment consists in change of lifestyle, use of insulin and oral antidiabetics – however, obstacles to access the pharmacotherapy lead to the use of alternative forms of treatment along with the traditional therapy, what can cause adverse health effects. The purpose of the present work was to carry out a survey about the medicinal plants used in concomitance with allopathic medicine by diabetic patients registered in the Hiperdia Minas Program attended in ESF I and II in Santa Rita, Governador Valadares (MG). Among the 145 respondents, 8.9% were diabetic, of whom the majority are female (53.8%), have low education (53.8%), low income (61.5%), are elderly (46.1 %), retired (46.1%) and didn’t practice physical activities (61.5%). The main classes of drugs in use are antihypertensive (33%), antidiabetics (19%) and sedatives (18.5%). Among the patients who use medicinal plants (46.1%), a large number declared doing it occasionally, through decoction of fresh leaves and didn’t inform health professionals. The most cited species were Gossypium spp., Cissus sicyoides L., Moringa oleifera Lam., Morus alba L., Aloe vera L., Carica papaya L., Cymbopogon citratus (DC) Stapf. and Cecropia spp., which only Cissus sicyoides L. and Cecropia sp.p didn’t show interactions with allopathic drugs. Such results demonstrate the need for the pharmacist to work with health teams in order to assess possible interactions between medicinal plants and medicines, ensuring patient safety and the effectiveness of therapy by associating empirical and scientific knowledge.