Bitter Melon — A Chinese Herbal Remedy to Help Type 2 Diabetics
Monday, May 5th, 2008I’m always looking around for different herbal remedies and food cures. I ran across something very interesting about the vegetable bitter melon. Bitter melon has been used in traditional Chinese herbal medicine for centuries and has demonstrated a variety of therapeutic properties. It has been used for conditions that range from hypertension to constipation.
Bitter melon has also been known widely to be a beneficial agent against type 2 diabetes. We do know that bitter melon has beneficial effect on lowering blood sugars. However, no one seems to know what properties of this seeming cure all herb helps diabetics. Now a team of scientists in Australia and China believe that they have unlocked at least one of the secrets of bitter melon. They have found four compounds in bitter melon known as cucurbitane glycosides. These compounds are what seem to help type 2 diabetics in particular.
People suffering from type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance seem to always be looking for a natural way to help themselves with their condition. If you are one of these people, why not take look into bitter melon and put it into your herbal medicine cabinet.
Tags: bitter melon, food cures, glycosides, Herbal Remedies, insulin resistance, traditional chinese herbal medicine, type 2 diabetes
This study was done with men at 50 years of age. They underwent glucose (blood sugar) tolerance testing. The men were followed-up at an average of 32 years later and found that men with insulin resistance were nearly one and a half times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s, dementia, or other mental impairments.
More and more Americans are becoming overweight and 
In a recent study, researchers examined the effects of caffeine on 10 patients with type 2 diabetes. These patients were already regular coffee drinkers and they were trying to manage their diabetes without using insulin. The patients were asked not to drink coffee during the study.
Interestingly though, there is another study that shows if you skip meals every other day that it could actually improve health. Intermittent fasting has resulted measurable metabolic benefit for obese people. People in the study using an alternating dieting pattern lost an average of 8% of their body weight and they also had lower cholesterol and triglycerides.
While researchers are hesitant to directly link smoking to the onset of diabetes, they do theorize that smoking may lead to insulin resistance. Another possible explanation, people that smoke tend not to have the healthiest lifestyle. These unhealthy behaviors include lack of exercise, poor diet, and in some cases large consumption of alcohol.
The surgery takes about an hour. A device about the size of a small cell phone is implanted in the abdomen. There are electrodes connected to the device that send electrical impulses to the stomach when a person eats. This device was originally created to induce weight loss. While it did cause modest weight loss the results of the effect on type 2 diabetes was even greater.
A study at the University of Washington found that it is more expensive to eat healthy food. They compared 370 different foods at their local supermarkets. The comparison was based on calorie for calorie.
There is a “French paradox” – The French have relatively low incidences of coronary heart disease, despite having a diet relatively rich in saturated fats. The French love their food as well as their wine. Have they known the secrets of this miracle drink and just didn’t want to share?
Reduce your fat intake – Surprisingly, fat intake is a major predictor of insulin resistance not carbohydrates. So you should eat no more than 30 percent of your calories form fat (50-60 grams per day). Saturated fat needs to be less than 10 percent of total calories. This can be a hard goal for some people to reach considering 2 slices of cheese is 12 grams.
