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%.
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