Turmeric Extract May Prevent,

Even Reverse Diabetes (Type 1

and 2)
7685

108

223

13K

432

51
Google +
Posted on:
Sunday, August 30th 2015 at 3:45 pm
Written By:
Sayer Ji, Founder
This article is copyrighted by GreenMedInfo LLC, 2015
Visit our Re-post guidelines
What if the long sought after "cure" for diabetes was as safe, affordable,
and accessible as a spice sitting in your kitchen cupboard?
Leave your drugs in the chemist's pot if you can cure the patient with
food."

-Hippocrates, 420 BC
Slowly but surely the world is waking up to the reality that diabetes is not only a
preventable but a reversible condition, and that the drug-based model of symptom
suppression and disease management has fatal flaws. For instance, some of the drugs
used to treat type 2 diabetes actually increase the risk of death, with a recent study
showing GMO insulin given to type 2 diabetics may lead to the development of so-
called "double diabetes": type 2 and type 1 diabetes, together. Clearly, if medicine
can't at least abide by its founding principle to "do no harm," it must seek the answer
somewhere other than from the "chemist's pot."
As the pharmaceutically-driven medical paradigm continues to lose adherents by the
droves, and the public seeks a system that identifies and resolves the root causes of
disease, interest is growing in the use of natural substances and lifestyle modifications
to prevent and treat blood sugar disorders. And unlike a few decades ago, where most
of the evidence for "natural healing" was anecdotal, there are now thousands of studies
on hundreds of natural substances and therapeutic activities that may ameliorate blood
sugar disorders and their complications. You can check out a good portion of the
relevant research on the topic on GreenMedInfo.com's blood sugar disorder database.

While plants like cinnamon and gymnema sylvestre have received plenty of attention
for diabetes over the years, one special plant extract that is beginning to stand out from
the crowd as being exceptionally valuable as an anti-diabetic agent is turmeric. There
are, in fact, 21 articles on turmeric's value in type 2 diabetes on our database alone.

Turmeric's primary polyphenol curcumin is the main compound in the plant that has
been researched for it's blood sugar regulating properties. One particularly striking
study, published in the American Diabetic Association's own journal, Diabetes Care,
found turmeric extract to be 100% effective in preventing pre-diabetics from
developing type 2 diabetes -- a feat of prevention that no FDA approved drug for type
2 diabetes has yet come even close to accomplishing.

Turmeric Extract May Reverse

Pancreatic Damage In Type 1
Diabetes
It turns out that this spice may be a powerful therapeutic intervention for more than just
type 2 diabetics. Pre-clinical research now reveals it may have a role in reversing
pancreatic damage in insulin-dependent, type 1 diabetics, who are routinely told that
their condition can not be cured. Type 1 diabetics are rarely educated to the fact that
the root cause of their disorder can be addressed: namely, that the deficiency and/or
dysfunction of the beta cells in the pancreas responsible for producing insulin can be
repaired, as well as the autoimmune issues at the heart of the problem.
Back in 2013, an exciting study published in the journal Diabetology & Metabolic
Syndrome titled, "The effect of a novel curcumin derivative on pancreatic islet
regeneration in experimental type-1 diabetes in rats (long term study)," found that
diabetic rats who received a novel water-soluble, high concentrate (53.21%) curcumin
derivative orally for 40 days showed an improvement of their plasma glucose, insulin
and C-peptide (a marker for the health and insulin producing capability of the beta cells)
levels, that began after about 4 months, and continued to improve until the 10 month
mark, when their values were almost completely normalized and evidence of significant
pancreatic regeneration could be observed. The researchers concluded the novel
curcumin derivative (NCD): "...possesses antidiabetic actions and enhanced
pancreatic islets regeneration."
The daily dose used in this rodent study (80 mg/kg) was the body weight equivalent of
6,400 mg or 6.4 grams of curcumin for an average North American male adult (80
kilograms/176 lbs). Rodent and human physiology is, of course, radically different, but
significant crossovers nonetheless do exist. In another article, titled "Why Turmeric
May Be the Diseased Liver's Best Friend," we reviewed research indicating that
turmeric may help to reverse damage in and even regenerate the diabetic liver, as well
as safety literature on what is a safe human dose:

A 2001 study in cancer patients reported that quantities of curcumin up to

8 g, administered per day for three months, were not toxic and resulted in
significant anti-cancer properties in a number of those treated.
[5] Considering that turmeric is only 3-4% curcumin by weight, this implies
that a larger quantity of turmeric can be consumed safely, as well.
Given that organ transplantation (pancreatic islet transplants) is exceedingly expensive
and prohibitive due to a lack of donor material and the potential for rejection by the
host, the notion that a safe, affordable, and non-prescription spice extract like curcumin
may have significant therapeutic value and may even regenerate damaged pancreatic
tissue, is truly exciting. That said, it should be noted that since curcumin is not
patentable, it is unlikely the 800 million dollars or more needed to fund the requisite
clinical trials needed to obtain FDA drug approval will materialize. Because the so-
called "evidence" needed to justify the use of a new treatment is locked behind an
insurmountably high paywall, don't count on randomized, controlled, trials being
performed on this "natural cure" in the near or distant future.

In this study, the authors surmised that the ameliorative effects curcumin treatment on
type 1 diabetic rodents observed were the result of beta cell regeneration and they
explained the theory behind how this works:

Each tissue or organ is believed to contain a small sub-population of cells that is

capable of self-renewal and has the ability to give rise to each mature cell type
[47]. Thus, one of the most promising sources of beta cells might be pancreatic
stem cells.
The researchers theorized that curcumin likely produces,

"...a favorable systemic and pancreatic environment to foster bone marrow

transplantation and islet neogenesis. Accordingly, administration of curcumin; as
an established anti-inflammatory and immune modulatory drug; would likely
boost and preserve the process of islet regeneration; which was evidently
proven true in this study."
Curcumin's "immunomodulatory" benefit in type 1 diabetes, also known as autoimmune
diabetes, appears to be based on it reducing the activity of the host immune system in
attacking self-structures. In fact, another recent study, published in 2014 in the journal
Clinical and Experimental Immunology titled, "Curcumin ameliorates autoimmune
diabetes. Evidence in accelerated murine models of type 1 diabetes," found that
curcumin down-regulates the T cell response that destroys pancreatic beta cells,
resulting in an improvement in autoimmune or type 1 diabetes.
It is important for the reader to know that curcumin is not a magic bullet; nor is it the
only natural substance studied to have potential beta cell regenerative properties.
Indeed, pancreatic regeneration has been induced experimentally for at least 23
different natural substances. We have a keyword dedicated to indexing relevant
research on the topic here: beta cell regeneration. We've highlighted 10 of the most
compelling ones in our article, "10 Natuaral Substances That Could Help Cure Type 1
Diabetes."

As the research continues to accumulate on the value of natural substances for disease
prevention and treatment, it is clear the future of medicine will rely on returning to the
wisdom of the ancients, where Hippocrates' fundamental principle that one can "cure
the patient with food" is once again passionately embraced.