According to the statistics from the American Diabetes Association, 24 million people are suffering from diabetes in the United States of America, and 5 million people even don’t know to have diabetes. Overall, there are 54 million Americans whose blood glucose levels are in unstable states or existing phenomena of insulin resistance at different levels. Most patients have Type II diabetes, which can be prevented and controlled by a healthy diet with low carbohydrate and low sugar. Patients with diabetes have an increasing risk of other diseases like heart disease, stroke, blindness, peripheral neuropathy and pain, impairment of renal function, impotence, or skin disorders.
One article published in ‘Nation Annals of Internal Medicine’ carried out a 30-year follow-up investigation of 4,000 adults on their developing status of obesity. The result revealed that 90% of males and 70% of females finally developed overweight. There are close connections between obesity and diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, hypertension, depression, and many cancers. M.D. Michael Cutler of America found the following herbal medicines can prevent and control diabetes after studies and summaries of many years.
1. Leaves of red peony
This kind of old herbal medicine originated from the India tropics, people find that frequently chewing its leaves lowers blood glucose, and it can be used as a pharmacological inhibitor of weight loss. More importantly, several studies with placebo controls showed that red peony extracts lowered blood glucose by increasing the activities of insulin. Studies on animals showed that red peony extracts doubled the number of insulin-producing cells in the pancreas and made the blood glucose level tend to be normal. Studies on human bodies showed that red peony extracts increased the bodies’ ability to control blood glucose.
2. Fenugreek
This is a kind of annual herbal medicine, also called sweet grass, snow sally (Tibetan), which is good for crops of rapid growth, green manure, and fodders. It is native to Southern European, Northern Africa, and Middle Asia, and it has a wide distribution in China like provinces of Tibet, Xinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai, and Shanxi. A large-scale research showed that after 24 hours some patients who had Type II diabetes with terrible control of blood glucose received fenugreek extracts, and the level of postprandial average blood glucose was reduced from 151 mg/L to 112 mg/L.
3. Korean ginseng or American ginseng
Research with placebo control showed that postprandial blood glucose was reduced after patients with Type II diabetes received Korean ginseng or American ginseng extracts.
4. Bitter orange
This kind of herbal medicine stimulates sympathetic nervous system and then increases the ability of metabolism as well as reducing patients’ appetite.
5. Milk thistle
It’s also called Silybum marianum, cardus marianus, blessed milk thistle, etc. When the stem and lamina of milk thistle are cut apart, milk-white sap will outflow, therefore, the name is defined as ‘Milk thistle’. Kashmir Mountains in India and Pakistan are the origin of S. marianum, and now it has been planted in many areas of Europe, America, and Australia. It has a medical history of more than 2000 years so far and has been a natural herbal medicine that is most efficient in improving liver function and treating liver and gall diseases clinically. Milk thistle prompts the damaged liver to produce regeneration ability. It stimulates the regeneration of new hepatocytes, repairs the function of damaged livers, increases the output of bile, prevents hepatitis and cirrhosis, and when mistakenly touching or eating toxic substances and leading to the impairment of the liver, taking this herbal medicine immediately will detoxify the symptom at once. Studies showed that extracts of milk thistle also prevent fatty liver and avoid diabetes that obesity causes.
6. Green tea
Green tea can increase the ability of metabolism and reduce the morbidity of chronic diseases. Meanwhile, it can reduce the uptake of food, and the weight, cholesterol, and triglyceride will be reduced. A study showed that green tea can increase the activity of insulin by 15 times.
7. Huckleberry
Leaves of huckleberries have a weak anti-diabetic characteristic. Studies on animals showed that it can continuously lower the level of blood glucose by 26%. In folk medicine, it is called herb tea which can lower blood glucose.
8. Cinnamon
America Journal of ‘Diabetes Care’ reported that these kinds of spices can increase rodents’ ability of metabolism to carbohydrate food. Levels of blood glucose will be reduced if taking the cinnamon extract of less than half a spoon each day and continuously for 40 days.
9. Acanthopanax
Acanthopanax includes canthopanax which is similar to insulin, but further research is being conducted for its specific chemical substance. Its roots can be purified and manufactured into tinctures, a quite small dose of which can lower blood glucose.