A New Ayurvedic Herb for Diabetes?

Global Courant

In the February 2008 issue of the medical journal Diabetes Care there is a clinical trial report on a “new” ayurvedic herb for type 2 diabetes, Coccinia cordifolia.

Also known as koval or ivy gourd, this herb is in the same plant family as the more famous bitter melon. Koval is a common plant from India and Bangladesh that grows in the Indian subcontinent like kudzu grows in the southern part of the US.

Koval grows huge corms that anchor it to the ground and then it spreads vines in all directions. Unlike kudzu, it bears trumpet-like white blossoms that produce a zucchini-shaped but purple-red fruit. Ayurvedic medicine has used the fruit and leaves as a treatment for diabetes for centuries, but this study is the first detailed clinical trial.

Since Ayurvedic practitioners typically recommend “a handful” of the dried leaves and chopped gourd to make tea, the researchers at St. John’s National Academy of Health Sciences in Bangalore prepared a standardized 15-gram extract of the dried herb. Then they gave the extract or a placebo to 60 newly diagnosed type 2 diabetics for 60 days.

If you’re familiar with how most prescription drugs for diabetes work (many of them encourage weight gain), you’ll be impressed to learn that people taking the herb not only did not gain weight, but also experienced a slight trend in weight. loss (less than 0.1 kilo or a quarter pound per month). There was also a very slight trend toward slimmer waists and tighter hips (again a few millimeters, or tenths, or an inch), all without any change in food eaten or total calories. However, body fat percentages increased very slightly.

And as you may have read in other natural health headlines, the Ayurvedic herb definitely lowered blood sugar.

At the start of the study, the mean fasting blood sugar in the test group was 132 mg/dL and the mean postprandial (after eating) blood sugar was 183 mg/dL.

The effects of the herb gradually increased over 90 days. By the end of the third month of the clinical trial, mean fasting blood glucose among the diabetics who received the herb had dropped to 111 mg/dL, while the diabetics who did not receive the herb actually had slightly higher morning blood glucose levels. In the group of diabetics who received the herb, postprandial (after eating) blood sugars fell to an average of below 150 mg/dl. The improvement in blood sugar levels was confirmed by an average 0.6 percent decrease in HbA1C.

The researchers noted that similar percentages of diabetics given the herb (94 percent) and diabetics given the placebo (93 percent) were able to stick to their diabetes diet. The difference in blood sugars was due to the spice. It is also important to note that the diabetics taking the herb were not taking any of the diabetes medications commonly prescribed in North America, Australia, New Zealand or the UK, and they did not have blood sugar levels that warranted immediate use of insulin requirement.

So how does Coccinia cordifolia work?

The researchers aren’t sure, but it appears that a chemical in the herb is insulin-mimetic. That is, this as-yet unidentified compound acts similarly to insulin in clearing glucose from the bloodstream, but does not act in the same manner as insulin in moving triglycerides to hungry fat cells.

Is there a koval extract for type 2 diabetes coming soon to a natural health products store near you? Just ask at a shop that specializes in Ayurvedic herbs or where the patented extract Gencinia is sold. It’s already available. If you take the herb, use 15 g (about half an ounce) per day to make tea, drunk hot after steeping for 15 minutes in a closed teapot. If using a 15:1 dried extract, use 1,000 mg (1 g) per day.

If you have relatively mild type 2 diabetes and take your blood sugars every day and avoid carbohydrates, this herb is definitely worth a try.

A New Ayurvedic Herb for Diabetes?

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