Indian herb may be used to help diabetes sufferers

• Steve Hertzler, assistant professor of nutrition at Ohio State University, said the effects of the Indian herb are similar to what would be seen with prescription medications.
• Learn as much as you can about diabetes and how to control it.
• Lose weight if that's a problem for you.
• Talk with your doctor before using supplements, whether you're newly diagnosed or a longtime diabetic.
• Practitioners of traditional Indian medicine have used the herb, Salacia oblonga, for years to treat diabetics.
• The study, published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, centered on a powdered form of the herb that was added to a nutritional drink in varying doses and consumed by 39 healthy, non-diabetic adults.
• "We simply fed it to them mixed with a drink that we know raises blood glucose, and then we tried to see if adding the herb to that would lower the blood-glucose response to the drink," said Steve Hertzler, one of the study's co-authors.
• There are prescription drugs, such as Glyset (miglitol) and Precose (acarbose), that work in a similar fashion, but Hertzler sees a demand for alternatives.
• "It may affect a person's hunger response after a meal and some different things.
• Patti Geil, a registered dietitian and certified diabetes educator in Kentucky, said she thinks Salacia oblonga is worthy of additional research.
• But she cautions the public about scouring the Internet for the herb, which is distributed in such places as Japan but is uncommon in this country.
• Mary Kenealy, coordinator of the Louisville Metro Health Department's chronic disease prevention team, warned against deciding on your own to abandon prescription drugs for herbs.
• Consumers "need to talk to their doctor if they're even thinking about trying something like this," Hertzler said.