Can bitter gourd treat diabetes?

There are endless rumors about "eating XX food" that can cure "XX disease". In the past, Zhang Wu’s theory of “mung bean cures all diseases” had already settled down. Recently, many phrases such as “bitter gourd and okra cure diabetes” emerged.

Tracing this source, this is inextricably linked to the belief in “therapeutic therapy” that is rooted in people’s hearts. The so-called "three-point drug poison", in the face of the threat of disease, people eagerly hope that there is a certain food in the natural world, which can simultaneously meet the dual needs of food and health.

The myth of diet in the novel

In "The Legend of the Condor Hero", Xiaolong's female body is "half awkward" and it is "toxic and inhaled the viscera of the pubic region." Anything that is a panacea is no use.

However, no medicine to cure does not mean that the disease is incurable, so that the dragon girl regains her new life is the well-received “food therapy” myth: in the deep valley under the heartbroken cliff, she relied on long-term eating “bee honey” and “ Hantan Whitefish, two kinds of tasty and detoxified food, actually recovered completely.

Here, the dietary treatment has overcome the terminal illness and has created a beautiful agreement for a couple to meet here after 16 years.

The "Kai Ling Shen Acupuncture" is Li Mozhen's unique weapon, why its toxicity will be honey + white fish g, this can be explained by ancient tomb experts. I still take the “bitter bitter gourd” as an example in my own area of ​​diabetes that I am familiar with, and I discuss with people about how similar “food therapy” views are not reliable.

The nutritional value of bitter gourd

From the nutritional point of view, every 100g of bitter gourd contains 93.4g of moisture, 3.5g of carbohydrates, 1g of protein, 0.1g of fat, 1.4g of dietary fiber, and trace elements such as sodium, calcium, iron, and various vitamins, including VB1, Vc. Content ranks first in fruits and vegetables.

To evaluate whether a food is suitable for diabetics, the most commonly used index is the Glycemic Index (GI).

Bitter gourd is a typical “low GI food” with a GI value of only 24, similar to that of cherries (22), cucumbers (23), papaya (30), etc., much lower than carrots (71), pumpkin (75) and other foods. The effect of blood sugar is minimal.

Simple summary: bitter gourd with more water, carbohydrates, low glycemic index, but also contains the necessary dietary fiber, vitamins and trace elements, is an ideal food for diabetics.

However, this is only a common characteristic of most vegetables. Bitter gourd is no better than “sweet guagua and guava” such as gourd, wax gourd, cucumber, and papaya in these aspects.

"Lower-glucose active ingredients" in bitter gourd

It is of course not so simple to say "bitter gourd lowering sugar".

From the 1980s onwards, there has been continuous research and discovery that bitter gourd sap extracts contain a variety of hypoglycemic active ingredients such as triterpenes, terpenes, glycosides, and peptides.

Among them, the structure of polypeptides is similar to that of insulin and can mimic the physiological action of insulin and is called "plant insulin." The researchers injected these extracted peptides into the skin of diabetic mice and found that the blood glucose of mice has been reduced to some extent.

"Plant insulin" and "naturally pure, without chemical combination" sound beautiful, but unfortunately there is still a long way to go.

To extract the hypoglycemic active ingredients from bitter gourd sap, this is a complicated project. Classical laboratory extraction processes include: organic alcohol extraction, acetone precipitation, dilution of precipitated water, dialysis collection of supernatant, salting out, ion exchange chromatography, and purification.

In the kitchen, we cannot effectively extract these substances by braising, drying, or cooling.

In addition, in these animal experiments, the polypeptide extracts of bitter gourd are hypoglycemic by hypodermic injection, intraperitoneal injection, etc., but they cannot be directly administered orally, otherwise they will be rapidly decomposed by digestive enzymes of the gastrointestinal tract, which is related to insulin. Can not be oral, need to be administered by subcutaneous injection is a truth.

This also reminds us that relying on “eating” can not play the hypoglycemic effect of bitter gourd.

In 2007, a famous paper published in the American Journal of Clinical Epidemiology published a paper. In this study, patients with diabetes were given orally with a capsule containing bitter gourd extract at each meal for a total of 3 months. The final results showed that diabetic patients with oral bitter gourd extract had blood glucose levels compared with controls. There is no difference compared to that.

This study has proved from practice that it is impracticable to rely on "to eat bitter melon and reduce sugar."

How to Scientifically Treat "Bitter Gourd and Blood Sugar"

For this issue, we may be inspired by the story of "Exenatide."

In the 1990s, scientists isolated a peptide from the saliva of a Mexican lizard: exenatide, which was found to mimic the action of human glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) by regulating insulin. The secretion of glucagon maintains normal blood sugar.

After nearly two decades of lengthy research and numerous animal and human trials, exenatide has finally entered the doctor's prescription from the lizard's saliva.

Today, exenatide has become an official member of the hypoglycemic drug family, and more and more people with diabetes are receiving treatment.

Similarly, bitter gourd contains “active ingredients for hypoglycemic”, which is a scientific phenomenon and deserves further study.

However, at the moment when the conclusion is not clear, it should not be wasted on the judgment that “bitter gourd can be reduced to sugar”, and it should not eat too much bitter gourd for hypoglycemic, just as we do not eat lizard directly because of exenatide can reduce blood sugar. Or lizard saliva.

Speaking of this, some people may feel disappointed and turn their hopes on okra, pumpkin, and boiled water, because many posts tell people like this: “Diabetes was conquered by it, and the speed turned.”

Unfortunately, these are not reliable, and the real “diabetic diet” is a scientific, balanced diet rather than a specific food.

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