Therapeutic innovations for type 2 diabetes: if Nature is the solution?

There are nearly 9 million eukaryotic and prokaryotic species on earth, living in a wide variety of conditions ranging from thermal fissures to cold arctic environments. Anticancer, antiviral, antifungal drugs and antibiotics, are still directly extracted from many species or reproduced with improvements by chemical synthesis as biomimetics. GLP-1 analogues and metformin, respectively derived from the saliva of a venomous lizard of the Helodermatidae family and from the medicinal plant Galega Officinalis, are currently used as therapeutic drugs of type 2 diabetes worldwide. Therefore, the knowledge of terrestrial plants, animal species such as amphibians and reptiles, and aquatic biodiversity such as sponges and algae, may pave the way for the discovery of new insulin-secretagogues and insulin-sensitizers.