The consumption of pumpkin extracts could replace insulin injections in type 1 diabetes.
Ingestion of extracts from pumpkin could allow Type I diabetics no longer having to inject insulin every day in all cases to reduce very significantly the number of injections they are obliged to face each day. This suggests that a Chinese study whose results have just been published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.
Type I diabetes, also called “lean diabetes or” insulin dependent “, is caused by the destruction, following immune dysfunction (autoimmune disease), insulin producing cells in the pancreas.
Tao Xia and his colleagues at the Normal University East China showed that pumpkin extract would reduce the differences between diabetic rats and healthy rats. After a diet pumpkin, blood insulin levels in diabetic rats was lower by only 5% and the number of pancreatic beta cells (cells that normally synthesize insulin) fell 8%.
What magical substances are causing these effects?
The D-chiro-inositol and antioxidants, two classes of molecules would boost the level of insulin to lower blood glucose levels and reduce oxidative damage that glucose exerts normal pancreatic beta cell. Results: The cells of the pancreas are less damaged, they can regenerate and recover to make insulin, making the need less of this hormone screaming.
For David Bender, a researcher specializing in diabetes at the University Medical School in London, “these results are very exciting (…). They suggest that the pumpkin extract prevents the progressive destruction of pancreatic beta cells (…). But it is currently impossible to say whether these extracts can also regenerate human pancreatic cells.
Tags: consumption of pumpkin extracts, D-chiro-inositol, glucose exerts normal pancreatic beta cell, replace insulin injections, Type 1 Diabetes
