Introduction:

Spirulina platensis is a plankton filamentous cyanobacteria that has a natural spectrum of carotene, xanthophyll and phycocyanin pigments´mix, with antioxidant activity and the possibility of inducing a better control of glycemia in patients with diabetes mellitus.

Objective:

Describe the effects of the use in patients with diabetes mellitus of a product made from Spirulina platensis bacteria.

Method:

There were used as scientific information searchers: PubMed, SciELO, Google and Google Scholar. The keywords used were: Spirulina, Spirulina platensis, Arthrospira platensis, diabetes mellitus and metabolic control. There were assessed review articles, research articles and web pages, that in general had less than 10 years of being published in Spanish, Portuguese or English language, and whose titles were related with the studied topic. 70 bibliographic references were collected, and 49 of them were quoted in this article.

Conclusions:

Spirulina has different beneficial effects that allow its use as coadjuvant agent in the prevention and treatment of diabetes mellitus. It is a nutrient with functional and nutraceutical mildness, with a powerful antioxidant activity which has incidence in a better glycemic control and can be useful in the management of possible complications and comorbidities that accompany diabetes mellitus. Its use entails the possible adverse reactions, mainly digestive ones; although they are not frequent if the recommended doses are used. In general terms, it is considered a safe product.

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