|
Help From the Plant Kingdom for People With Type 2 Diabetes
Over 2,500 new cases of type 2 diabetes are diagnosed every day in the United
States — in addition to the 16 million Americans who already have the disease.
If you are one of those Americans, keep in mind that God has created natural
remedies to help you regulate the disease. These remedies come in the form of
pure plant extracts and have been used for centuries by people from South
America, Southeast Asia, and the Mediterranean to lower blood sugar levels.
Five herbs are particularly effective: gymnema, bitter melon, bilberry,
silymarin (milk thistle) and aloe vera.
Gymnema
is a bushy plant that grows in India. In one study, participants who had an
average blood sugar level of 232 were put on 400 milligrams of gymnema. By the
end of the study, their blood sugar levels dropped to an average of 152. That's
a very dramatic drop that we see from an herb. In another study, five out of 22
people that were put on gymnema were able to completely go off their
prescription medication — that's almost a fourth of them. No wonder gymnema is
used around the world for its ability to lower blood sugar levels.
Not too many people are familiar with
bitter melon.
This is a common, shrub-like plant that grows in India, Asia, South America
and Africa. It's actually a plant-like insulin. It's a molecule that literally
mimics insulin — a polypeptide or P-type insulin it's called. It increases the
glucose intake into your cells. (In type 2 diabetes, that's the main thing that
you want to achieve. More blood sugar needs to leave the blood stream and be
transported to the cells because that's where the deficit is.) People who are
taking bitter melon, particularly when combined with gymnema, see a drop in
their blood sugar levels because it's transported more readily to the cells.
Bilberry,
the third herb, is a cousin to the blueberry. It has shown up time and again
in the research concerning blood sugar. In one study, people who took bilberry
showed a drop of an average of 26 percent in their blood sugar levels. And
what's also interesting is that their triglycerides (one of the blood fats that
are high in people with diabetes) also dropped by an average of 39 percent.
Another big advantage of bilberry is that it protects the arteries in the back
of the retina, preventing blindness (a major complication of diabetes).
Another herb, which is the active compound in milk thistle, is
silymarin.
Silymarin is more commonly associated with the treatment of liver disease and
people who have hepatitis-C. It has been shown in studies to decrease fasting
blood sugar levels as well as A1C levels, your average blood sugar level for
the past three months.
Finally, there's
aloe vera
— a very common herb with a long list of uses. The journal
Phyto-Medicine
reported several significant studies about the effectiveness of aloe vera in
regulating blood sugar levels. One study found a significant drop — from 250
down to 141 — of fasting blood sugar levels in people using just aloe vera
extract.
As you can see, all five of these herbs can be very effective on their own in
regulating your blood sugar levels. However, working in conjunction with each
other, there can be even more dramatic results. Again, it's a balance of these
herbs — along with a proper balance of vitamin-mineral supplements combined
with soluble fibers — that can be most effective in helping you regulate type 2
diabetes and even perhaps enable you to get off your medications and control
the disease the
natural
way.
 |
|
