Abstract:

Background: Diabetes is a growing burden in sub-Saharan Africa where traditional medicines (TMs) remain a primary form of healthcare in many settings. In Tanzania, TMs are frequently used to treat non-communicable diseases, yet little is known about TM practices for non-communicable diseases like diabetes.

Objectives : To investigate the prevalence and patterns of concurrent use of herbal medication and conventional anti-diabetics among diabetic patients at Bugando Medical centre (BMC)

Methods: Between november 2023 and June 2024, I assessed tradition medicine and convectional ant diabetics prevalence , and pattern including frequencies, duration, among diabetic patients attending Bugando medical Centre .It was a cross section design study including all diabetic patients attending diabetic clinic and excluding patients who were critically ill

Results: I enrolled 271 adults of whom 271 (100 %) had diabetes. The prevalence of tradition medicine use and biomedicines concurrently was 66.05 % . and individuals with diabetes reported seeking healthcare from traditional healers, elders, family, friends, and herbal vendors. We identified several plant-based such as aloe- vera ,where most of them 77% reported to use traditional medicine weekly

Conclusions: According to the findings on this study, tradition medicines are used concomitantly with convectional ant diabetics for treatment and management of diabetes by patients attending out patients diabetic clinic at Bugando medical Centre .More than 179 (66% ) with diabetes use traditional medicine concomitantly with convectional ant diabetics so the combined use of tradition medicine and convectional ant diabetics could potentially lead to serious toxic side effects due to herbal-drug interaction .How ever this study should not be used to generalize the whole population as the study uses a small number of sample size.