Editor: Vladimir Bajic | Tactical Investor
Broccoli in a pill slashes diabetics’ blood sugar
Type 2 diabetes usually develops around middle age, often in people who are overweight. Their body stops responding to insulin, which controls the level of glucose in the blood. Abnormal insulin regulation causes a rise in blood sugar levels, which can raise people’s chances of heart attacks, blindness and kidney problems.
People with the condition are often prescribed metformin, which helps to lower blood glucose. However, as many as 15 per cent cannot take this therapy because of kidney damage risks.
“More research is needed to see if this repurposed drug can be used to treat Type 2 diabetes, as it was only tested in a small number of people and only helped a subset of those who are taking it,” says Elizabeth Robertson, of the charity Diabetes UK. “For now, we recommend that people continue with the treatment prescribed by their healthcare team.”
The concentration of sulforaphane given was around 100 times that found naturally in broccoli. “It was the same as eating around five kilograms of broccoli daily,” says Rosengren.
On average, those who received the broccoli extract saw their blood glucose reduce by 10 per cent more than those on the placebo. The extract was most effective in obese participants with “dysregulated” diabetes, whose baseline glucose levels were higher to start with.
“We’re very excited about the effects we’ve seen and are eager to bring the extract to patients,” says Rosengren. “We saw a reduction of glucose of about 10 per cent, which is sufficient to reduce complications in the eyes, kidneys and blood,” he saysFull Story
Broccoli theSecret Weapon Against Diabetes
A chemical in cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and sprouts called sulforaphane is thought to be responsible, having been shown to lower glucose levels in earlier lab experiments on diabetic rats.
To identify suitable compounds to examine, researchers used computer models to identify gene expression changes linked with type 2 diabetes, and then sift through thousands of chemicals that might reverse these changes.
“We’re very excited about the effects we’ve seen and are eager to bring the extract to patients,” one of the researchers, Anders Rosengren of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, told Andy Coghlan at New Scientist.
“We saw a reduction of glucose of about 10 per cent, which is sufficient to reduce complications in the eyes, kidneys and blood.”
That 10 percent average reduction was across a sample of 97 human volunteers taking part in a 12-week randomised, placebo-controlled trial. The participants who were obese and who had higher baseline glucose levels to begin with benefitted the most. Full Story
Broccoli Found to Reduce Blood Sugar in Diabetics
A compound found in broccoli appears to be at least as effective as a widely used drug to treat diabetes, according to Swedish researchers who think the ingredient could be a safe alternative for lowering blood sugar.
It turns out the green vegetable contains a chemical, called sulforaphane, that appears in clinical trials to work as well as metformin at reducing blood sugar levels in diabetics.
That could be good news for a significant percentage of the 300 million Type 2 diabetics around the world who cannot take metformin, a first-line therapy, because of potential kidney damage and stomach upset.
Dr. Anders Rosengren of the Lund University Diabetes Center in Sweden helped discover the potential of sulforaphane in lowering HA1c, a blood biomarker of long-term glucose control.
He led a team of researchers who used a computer model to sort through a public database of more than 3,800 promising compounds to find sulforaphane.
‘Very exciting’
“We think this is very exciting. because there have been so many claims over the years of different food, dietary components having different health effects. We have really scientifically based proof that it has an effect on Type 2 diabetes,” Rosengren said. Full Story
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