What’s old is new again. For over two thousand years India’s herbalist have used the leaves of the Gymnema Sylvestre plant to treat diabetes, known as sweet urine in those days. This is long before any Western medicine found a dependable treatment. The folk medicine of Japan, Vietnam and Australia also use the extract from the plant for medicinal purpose. The name comes from the Hindu language and the word ‘gumar” which holds the meaning of sugar or sweet destroyer.
This unassuming plant, also known as Ram’s horn, is a woody, climbing vine plant grown in tropical rainforests of central and western India, Australia and tropical Africa. It has many uses besides the control of diabetes. Many of the traditional medicine practitioners used not just the leaf to treat sweet urine but also dried and powdered the root to treat constipation, stomach problems, snakebites and even liver disease. When modern times came, most of its use declined in favor of insulin. Today, scientists and health specialists revisit the plant and take a new look at the low cost treatment for the disease that kills and handicaps thousands of people each year, diabetes.
Just a small taste of Gymnema Sylvestre and you’ll forget about sugar. That doesn’t mean that you’ll no longer remember sugar, it means that you won’t be able to taste it. If the extract is put on the tongue it zero’s in on the taste buds for sweetness and stops the stimuli from going to the brain so you no longer taste anything sweet for a period of time.
This magnificent slow growing plant is popular with Ayurvedic, homeopathic and folk healers for treatment of asthma, inflammation and even family planning. It also earned a reputation as an eye treatment. Since it is so affective against diabetes, the early healers probably found that it helped with vision problems caused by the disease and didn’t yet make the correlation between the eyes and the patients that had sweet urine (diabetes). They simply observed and knew it helped somehow.
There are many uses for the tea and capsules. One of the most prevalent, beyond that of diabetes is for weight control. The gymnema not only blocks the sweet flavor to the brain but a small cup of tea before a meal stops the craving for the sweets and reduces that amount of sugar absorbed into the intestine. It is also effective for lowering cholesterol.
Studies on rodents indicate that the compounds found in the leaves are anti-bacterial, anti-viral and anti-allergic. They also lower the lipids and may have the ability to help with proper levels of cholesterol and triglyceride levels.
There are many studies not only on the gymnema extract and the treatment of diabetes, but also extend the studies to why it works so well. One study found that the plant extract actually acts as a catalyst to the release of more insulin from the islets of Langerhans beta cells. Another found that if rats pancreatic islet tissue was damaged enough to bring on diabetes, the gymnema actually helped to heal and restore them.
Both the National Institute of health and the U.S National Library of Medicine agree that there is a great deal of scientific evidence that the properties contained in the gymnema plant are extremely helpful when people with both type 1 and 2 diabetes use it in adjunct with the medication and insulin they presently take for controlling their condition.
With all the great news coming from the study of the plant you must wonder if there are any bad side effects. The answer is yes. If you take gymnema sylvestra while you’re on insulin or medicine to control diabetes without the monitoring of a medical practitioner, you run the risk of lowering your blood sugar below safe levels. It also increases the effectiveness of medication that controls cholesterol. Just like any herbal remedy or medication, never take it without first consulting your primary care physician.
