Diabetes is a chronic disease caused by disorder of glucose metabolism

and it has affected 9% of the total number of adults in the world. Long course and lack of efficient drugs make diabetes one of the severest diseases that bother the public health system. Developing a safe and effective hypoglycemic drug is the key to solve this problem. Traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) and their extracts have unique advantages in treatment of diabetes

highly effective and with little side-effects. Clinical and experimental studies unveiled that oleanolic acid from TCM played the major role in its hypoglycemic effects. More and more researches have been published in these years to reveal the mechanism of oleanolic acid in diabetic treatment. At first

the pharmacological functions of oleanolic acid in treatment of diabetes and its complications were summarized in this paper. Subsequently

possible molecular mechanism of how oleanolic acid could modulate glycogenesis and glycogenolysis

promote insulin production

and enhance insulin effects were discussed

while the possible cellular pathways of oleanolic acid to improve the complications of diabetes by reducing the intracellular inflammatory factors and peroxy free radicals were investigated in this paper. Finally

the existing problems of oleanolic acid as an antidiabetic drug were discussed

and by considering the current research results

solutions were put forward

and prospects were given in terms of how to further develop

produce and promote oleanolic acid as a clinical drug for diabetes.