Both types of diabetes are currently presented as incurable by the medical establishment. Apparently, only alleviation of symptoms is possible. However, in the case of type 1 diabetes, where the patient's pancreas produces insufficient insulin to control blood glucose levels, huge progress has been made in India. Most type 2 patients can benefit by changing their diet.

Type 1 (insulin dependent) diabetes
In conventional medicine, type 1 diabetes patients are prescribed a variety of glucose-lowering drugs, principally insulin, which keep them alive and suppress the symptoms, but do not cure the disease. Researchers in Madras, India are addressing what they believe may be the major cause: malfunction in pancreatic beta cells. Double-blind studies [1] confirm that the therapy they have developed can cure up to 60% of patients by restoring proper beta cell function. The deciding factor appears to be whether the antigens which originally caused the auto-immune response which damaged the beta cells are still in the patient's body. Where they remain in the body a cure is less likely because they continue to trigger damaging immune system activity. Work on how to remove the antigens continues.

The therapy
A water-soluble extract of the leaves of Gymnema sylvestre (400 mg/day) was administered to 27 patients for 10-12 months with type 1 diabetes on insulin therapy. Insulin requirements came down. Fasting blood glucose levels fell.
While serum lipids (fats and oils) returned to near normal levels, fasting blood glucose levels remained higher than in healthy people. The control group (people with type1 diabetes on insulin therapy only) showed no significant reduction in serum lipids, or fasting blood glucose levels.
Gymnema sylvestre therapy appeared to enhance the body's own production of insulin, possibly by regeneration/revitalisation of the residual beta cells.
Whether the medical establishments in more industrially developed countries will allow the adoption of this herb-based therapy for diabetes is another matter.

Ed.- We recommend that people wishing to try Gymnema sylvestre do so in conjunction with a medical nutritionist. A fuller description of the therapy used in the type 1 diabetes trial is available free of charge from the Green Health Watch office (please send a stamped addressed envelope).

One UK source of Gymnema sylvestre extract we have found is Xynergy Health Products. They offer 90 400mg capsules of 'Gymnema Plus Formula' for £12.95. For more information contact: Xynergy Health Products, Elsted, Midhurst, GU29 0JT Tel.: 01730 813642 Order line: 08456 585858