Herbs, Drugs and Diet for Diabetes?

My husband has diabetes type 2 and takes Metformin for that plus exercises and watches his diet. I recently ordered Diamaxol to help him with this and hope it is okay to use with the Metformim or possibly stop the Metformin altogether eventually. The holy basil I just started him on, as I read there were no interactions with most drugs. He also takes Zetia for his cholesterol. The other cholesterol meds they took away from him when they discovered his fatty infiltrated enlarged liver. Will either of these help him as far as his sugar, his stressed out state (irritable) and help his breathing as well without interactions or affect his liver function. He is 72 years young.

Diamaxol is sold as a natural supplement for diabetes. It contains banaba, guggul, bitter melon, licorice, cinnamon, Gymnema sylvestre, yarrow, cayenne, juniper berries, huckleberry and vanadyl sulfate. It may contain other ingredients as well. You should ask the manufacturer or distributor for complete information on interactions with diabetes drugs. I cannot comment on proprietary products. You can search the Q&A section of our website www.richters.com for the actions of some of the ingredients. For information on herbs and diet for diabetes, please enter "diabetes" for the Q&A search.
Diet is the most important change your husband can make. Diet is usually responsible for causing the hormone problem in type 2 diabetes, and leads to the chain of imbalances that follows, like high cholesterol. To make a significant change in diabetes, and sto stop the progression of health problems, it is not enough to "watch" the diet. I suggest that you review the dietary changes in the item on "syndrome X", a blood sugar imbalance, on our website www.richters.com . You can use the link richters.com/show.cgi?page=./QandA/Medicinal/20011002-1.html.
I also recommend reading "The Schwarzbein Principle" by Diana Schwarzbein and Nancy Deville, ISBN 1-55874-680-3. Dr. Schwarzbein is an endocrinologist who has had consistently good results with her patients by using diet therapy. Dr. Schwarzbein's diet is different from that recommended by diabetic associations.
For your husband's "stressed out" state, I recommend getting some calming herbal teas from a health food store.