Diabetes mellitus is a disease that is becoming increasingly prevalent worldwide. In many cases, people do not have access to synthetic drugs and make use of teas of different plants present in different countries, in order to reduce the symptoms. The plant extracts may contain bioactive compounds and may also contain toxic substances harmful to the human body. Much has been published about plants with antidiabetic activity, identifying their bioactive compounds, but there is no work in the literature that identifies the mechanisms of action of the extracts or isolated compounds of the extracts for a better understanding of the chemical reactions that occur in patients with diabetes. Therefore, this study aims to review published works that have tried to show some active mechanism of the different compounds (flavonoids, saponins, polyphenols, vitamins, etc.), to explore these mechanisms through mathematical models that can predict the benefits of these extracts to, in the future, facilitate the application of these natural products into less expensive drugs. It can be concluded that many of the extracts and isolated compounds from different hypoglycemic plants have as main mechanisms the induction of the insulin secretion, the enhancement of the number of beta cells of pancreatic islets, and have antioxidant properties
