The concept of using metal ions for the remediation of diabetes generates from the report in 1899. A number of transitional and coordination compounds such as vanadium, chromium, manganese,cobalt, copper, zinc, tungsten and molybdenum have been suggested as possible adjuncts in the remediation of diabetes mellitus in vivoandin vitro. Metal compounds induce hypoglycemia by a wide diversity of mechanisms. Potential mechanisms of their antidiabetic insulin-like effects are activation of insulin receptor transmission (magnesium, chromium), inhibition of phosphatases (vanadium), antioxidant properties (tungstate, cobalt, manganese, zinc), lipid synthesis in muscle glycogen and excitation of glucose absorption, fleshy and hepatic tissues and suppressionof gluconeogenesis (chromium, cobalt) or energizing of the activities of the gluconeogenic enzymes: glucose-6 phosphatase (manganese) and phosphoenol pyruvate carboxykinase . Chromium, vanadium, zinc, copper, cobalt, and tungsten were found to be efficacious for treating diabetes in experimental animals. But still a long time use of the coordination
compounds as hypoglycemic drugs has to be estimated in order to have a safety and profitable effect.