Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni is a native plant of South America belonging to the Asteraceae family, with a long and dated history of medicinal plant first used in traditional medicine against diabetes and hypertension.

Its leaves are nowadays commercially utilized by the food and pharmaceutical industry as they produce secondary metabolites (diterpene glycosides), which are about 300 times sweeter than sucrose (1).

Its benefits in medicine range from hypertension to diabetes and this study confirms that a treatment with Stevia in 250mg tablets produced a significant improvement in the biochemical parameters of patients with chronic kidney disease (2).

Results suggest that oral administration to rats of a watery extract of dried leaves of Stevia induces systemic and renal vasodilation, causing hypotension, diuresis and natriuresis (3).

Stevia has many pharmacological and therapeutic applications, as suggested by many preclinical studies and some clinical trials; the properties of Stevia are non-toxic and have antioxidant, antimicrobial, antifungal and anticarcinogenic activities (4).

Bibliografia_________________________________________________________________________

(1) Stevia Rebaudiana Bertoni, a Source of High-Potency Natural Sweetener-Biochemical and Genetic Characterization.  Dyduch-Siemińska M, Najda A, Gawroński J, Balant S, Świca K, Żaba A.  Molecules. 2020 Feb 11;25(4). pii: E767. doi: 10.3390/molecules25040767.

(2) Preliminary analysis of the effect of Stevia (Stevia rebaudiana) in patients with chronic kidney disease (stage I to stage III).  Rizwan F, Rashid HU, Yesmine S, Monjur F, Chatterjee TK.  Contemp Clin Trials Commun. 2018 Aug 21;12:17-25. doi: 10.1016/j.conctc.2018.08.007.

(3) Chronic administration of aqueous extract of Stevia rebaudiana in rats: renal effects.  Melis MS.  J Ethnopharmacol. 1995 Jul 28;47(3):129-34.

(4) Nutritional and therapeutic values of Stevia rebaudiana: A review  Ena Gupta1, Shalini Purwar1, Shanthy Sundaram, G. K. Rai  Vol. 7(46), pp. 3343-3353, 10 December, 2013  DOI: 10.5897/JMPR2013.5276  ISSN 1996-0875 ©2013 Academic Journals