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Diabetes Articles
Fruit extract in Chinese medicine found effective in combating diabetes.
Cell Press (2006) Cell Metabolism Volume 3, Issue 6: June 6, 2006
A Gardenia fruit extract traditionally used in Chinese Medicine to treat the symptoms of type 2 diabetes does indeed contain a chemical that reverses some of the pancreatic dysfunctions that underlie the disease, researchers report in the June 7, 2006, Cell Metabolism. The chemical therefore represents a useful starting point for new diabetes therapies, they said.
Such a drug could offer a big advance, the group added, as no currently available therapy for diabetes actually targets the underlying causes of disease in insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells. Insulin controls blood levels of glucose, the body's main energy source. In those with diabetes, insulin deficiency or insulin resistance causes blood sugar concentrations to rise.
The team discovered that Gardenia extract contains the chemical "genipin." Previously known for its ability to cross-link proteins, they now find that the chemical also blocks the function of the enzyme called uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2) through another mechanism.
"We think the increase in UCP2 activity is an important component of the pathogenesis of diabetes," said Bradford Lowell of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. "Our goal therefore was to discover a UCP2 inhibitor capable of working in intact cells, as such an inhibitor could theoretically represent a lead compound for agents aimed at improving beta cell function in type 2 diabetes."
Study coauthor Chen-Yu Zhang's familiarity with traditional Chinese medicine led the team to consider the extract of Gardenia jasminoides Ellis fruits. Pancreas cells taken from normal mice secreted insulin when treated with the extract, they found, whereas the cells of mice lacking UCP2 did not. The results suggested that the extract worked through its effects on the UCP2 enzyme.
"When I first saw the results, I was in disbelief," Lowell said. "I didn't think we could ever be that lucky." However, blinded repetition of the initial experiments confirmed the results every time, he said.
Through a series of chemical analyses, the researchers then zeroed in on genipin as the active compound. Genipin, like the extract, stimulated insulin secretion in control but not UCP2-deficient pancreas cells.
They further found that acute addition of genipin to isolated pancreatic tissue reversed high glucose- and obesity-induced dysfunction of insulin-producing beta cells. A derivative of genipin that lacked the chemical's cross-linking activity continued to inhibit UCP2, they reported.
That's a good sign for the therapeutic potential of genipin-related compounds, according to Lowell, as such indiscriminate cross-linking would likely have adverse effects. However, further work will need to examine whether inhibition of UCP2 itself might also have some negative consequences.
Recent UAE Study Shows Successful Treatment of Diabetes with Acupuncture
"Clinical and Experimental Study in Treating Diabetes Mellitus by Acupuncture IN UAE" will be presented next year in Beijing to more than thousand delegates from all over the world. The study, led by Dr. Li and 16 other doctors from UAE, studied 60 diabetic patients from the UAE. Experts divided them randomly into two groups: the acupuncture group (38 patients) and the control group (22 patients). Both groups followed a regulated diet during the study, but one group received acupuncture at three points. The treatment was administered once a day for 30 days.
Among the 22 control group participants who took usual Diabetes-prescribed drugs, there were 12 cases rated as effectively treated and 8 cases as markedly effective. However 20 of them showed serious side effects such as kidney malfunction.
On the acupuncture group 27 patients were treated successful and 11 needed more treatment. However none of the 38 patients showed any side effect.
An example case is Hana Sharabi, who suffers from the disease. She has been prescribed modern medicine which caused her serious kidney conditions prompting her to stop the treatment. Doctors could not give other medicines and they told her to change her lifestyle. She did, eating healthy and going to the gym every day with no change in her Diabetes. On the contrary she developed high cholesterol, like 90% of diabetics as their liver (a major organ which balances the cholesterol) does not function well. One of her friends told her about Chinese treatments now available in UAE for treating the disease. After 6 months of treatment, Hana’s Diabetes was gone, much to the surprise of her doctors. Hana says, "My doctor told me that she can’t believe that without any western medicine my insulin level was back to normal and I was healthy."
Acupuncture for the treatment of chronic painful peripheral diabetic neuropathy: a long-term study.
Abuaisha BB, Costanzi JB, Boulton AJ.
Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice 1998 Feb;39(2):115-21.
Department of Medicine, Manchester Royal Infirmary, University of Manchester, UK.
Forty-six diabetic patients with chronic painful peripheral neuropathy were treated with acupuncture analgesia to determine its efficacy and long-term effectiveness. Twenty-nine (63%) patients were already on standard medical treatment for painful neuropathy. Patients initially received up to six courses of classical acupuncture analgesia over a period of 10 weeks, using traditional Chinese Medicine acupuncture points. Forty-four patients completed the study with 34 (77%) showing significant improvement in their primary and/or secondary symptoms (P < 0.01). These patients were followed up for a period of 18-52 weeks with 67% were able to stop or reduce their medications significantly. During the follow-up period only eight (24%) patients required further acupuncture treatment. Although 34 (77%) patients noted significant improvement in their symptoms, only seven (21%) noted that their symptoms cleared completely. All the patients but one finished the full course of acupuncture treatment without reported or observed side effects. There were no significant changes either in the peripheral neurological examination scores, VPT or in HbA1c during the course of treatment. These data suggest that acupuncture is a safe and effective therapy for the long-term management of painful diabetic neuropathy, although its mechanism of action remains speculative.
PMID: 9597381 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Zhongguo Zhen Jiu. 2008 Sep;28(9):629-33.
Randomized controlled study on effects of the needling method for regulating spleen-stomach on coronary heart disease complicated by type 2 diabetes mellitus complicated
Zhang ZL, Ji XQ, Zhao SH, Zhang JJ, Kang T, Yang XJ.
Department of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, Tianjin City Hospital of TCM, Tianjin 300140, China zhangzhilongtj@yahoo.com.cn
OBJECTIVE: To probe into the clinical therapeutic effect of acupuncture on coronary heart disease complicated by type 2 diabetes mellitus (CDM) and the mechanism.
METHODS: Using multi-central, randomized, controlled and blind methods, 120 cases of CDM were divided into an observation group and a control group, 60 cases in each group. They were treated by routine therapy for diabetes mellitus, and in the observation group, acupuncture at Quchi (LI 11), Hegu (LI 4), Xuehai (SP 10), Zusanli (ST 36), Yinlingquan (SP 9), Fenglong (ST 40). Diji (SP 8), Sanyinjiao (SP 6), etc. were added with the needling method for regulating spleen-stomach; while in the control group, acupuncture was given at Weiwanxiashu (EX-B 3), Feishu (BL 13), Pishu (BL 20), Shenshu (BL 23), Yanglingquan (GB 34), etc. The treatment was given twice a day in the two groups. Clinical therapeutic effects were assessed according to clinical symptoms and signs, frequency and lasting time of angina pectoris, quantity of taking Glycerol Trinitrate, blood sugar, blood lipids, urinary albumin excretion rate, urinary beta2-microglobulin, urinary monocyte chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1), ECG, heart color Doppler, etc.
RESULTS: The needling method for regulating spleen-stomach not only could improve the symptoms and signs of the patient, but also could improve the degree of ST segment moving down and the function of left artrium relaxation, and had benign regulative effect on glycometabolism, lipids metabolism and urinary albumin level, with significant differences as compared with the control group (P < 0.05 or P < 0.01). The markedly effective rate for improvement of ECG was 50.00% in the observation group and 13.79% in the control group. CONCLUSION: The needling method for regulating spleen-stomach can improve the damage of heart and blood vessels induced by abnormal sugar and lipids, decrease the level of urinary protein, inhibit MCP-1 excessive expression, relieve myocardial load and raise cardiac output in the patient of coronary heart disease complicated by type 2 diabetes mellitus.
PMID: 18822974 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
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