The main source of sugar has for long been cane sugar with beet sugar contributing a small percentage. These sugars along with sweetening qualities also have been found to contribute calories, which can lead to obesity, a risk factor for some chronic diseases such as Diabetes mellitus, Hypertension, Cardiovascular diseases, etc. Hence craving for sweetness led man to discover several forms of alternative intense sweeteners, which have made possible to offer consumers sweet taste without the calories.Stevia (Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni) is a natural herb, low calorie sweetener. Although there are more than 180 species of the stevia plant, only stevia rebaudiana gives the sweetest essence due to the fact that these leaves accumulate eight sweet diterpene glycosides (Soejartoet al., 1983). Stevioside is one of the principal diterpene glycoside having a sweetness of 250-300 times that of sucrose. The crude stevia leave sand herbal green powder is 10-15 times sweeter than sucrose (Crammer and Ikan, 1986).Research studies on the health benefits of consumption of stevia are few and therefore this investigation was undertaken to determine the effect of consumption of stevia and its therapeutic uses among selected non-insulin dependent diabetics and hypertensives.
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