Diabetes mellitus is a potentially morbid condition with high prevalence worldwide thus the
disease constitutes a major health concern. Presently, it is an incurable metabolic disorder which
affects about 2.8% of the global population. The search for compounds with novel properties to
deal with the disease condition is still in progress. This makes the use of experimental models for
the disease imperative. The current review has attempted to bring together all the reported
models, highlighted their short comings and drew the precautions required for each technique. It
was noted that, although chemical induction of diabetes mellitus with streptozotocin was the most
widely used procedure, alloxan induced – diabetes model was the best known drug induced
diabetes. Genetic and surgical models were rarely used because they required highly technical
skills and the percentage of animals lost during the procedures were higher. From the review it
was concluded that, chemical induction with alloxan appears to be the easiest, reliable and the
most practicable method of inducing diabetes mellitus in rodents