Originally published March 26 2005
Indian herb may be used to help diabetes sufferers
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Salacia oblonga is a woody plant from India and Sri Lanka that is little-known in the United States, but a recent study at Ohio State University is changing that. Practitioners of traditional Indian medicine have used the herb for years to treat diabetes, and the study indicates that ingesting the herb does lower insulin and blood sugar levels.
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.
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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.
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