Cinnamon and Bitter Melon for reducing fasting levels

So had my standard Saturday night Indian takeaway. Last time with 4 x Bitter Melon caps went from 4.9 to 6.1 after 2 hours. Tonight I ate my last 2 Bitter Melon caps so had to add 2 Banaba Caps instead and went from 4.8 to 6.1 so that's encouraging.

Found some Banaba Human research studies. Can't get to the actual studies without paying but can see the conclusions.

Diabetes Res Clin Pract. 2006. Department of Diabetes and Clinical Nutrition, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.
In this study, 31 subjects were orally administered 10mg corosolic acid or a placebo, on different occasions, in a capsule 5min before the 75-g oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) in a double-blind and cross-over design. Nineteen subjects had diabetes, seven had impaired glucose tolerance, one had impaired fasting glucose, and four had normal glucose tolerance according to the 1998 WHO criteria. There were no significant differences in plasma glucose levels before and 30min after the administration. Corosolic acid treatment subjects showed lower glucose levels from 60min until 120min and reached statistical significance at 90min. In this study, we have shown for the first time that corosolic acid has a lowering effect on postchallenge plasma glucose levels in vivo in humans.

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this one is more impressive

Antidiabetic activity of a standardized extract (Glucosol) from Lagerstroemia speciosa leaves in Type II diabetics. A dose-dependence study.
J Ethnopharmacol. 2003. Judy WV, Hari SP, Stogsdill WW, Judy JS, Passwater R. SIBR, Bradenton, FL
The antidiabetic activity of an extract from the leaves of Lagerstroemia speciosa standardized to 1% corosolic acid (Glucosol) has been demonstrated in a randomized clinical trial involving Type II diabetics. Subjects received a daily oral dose of Glucosol and blood glucose levels were measured. Glucosol at daily dosages of 32 and 48mg for 2 weeks showed a significant reduction in the blood glucose levels. Glucosol in a soft gel capsule formulation showed a 30% decrease in blood glucose levels compared to a 20% drop seen with dry-powder filled hard gelatin capsule formulation suggesting that the soft gel formulation has a better bioavailability than a dry-powder formulation.

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Don't worry that it says Glucosol or corosolic acid as that's the active ingredient in Banaba. If you read about corosolic acid you'll find its a thing that mimics the behaviour of insulin to some degree which is how it works in the body. Products that contain it are also sold as weight loss drugs. Be careful as there are several supplements that contain pure corosolic acid such as Glucofit but they are roughly a tenth of the power of plain Banaba leaf extract caps you can get off eBay.

The one I bought was Paradise Banaba Leaf and each cap ends up giving you a 3mg dose of corosolic acid from the 250mg of Banaba Leaf extract in each cap. So to get to the level of the first human study you would need to take around 3 caps a day and to get to the claimed 30% reduction in blood sugar levels of the second study you would have to take around 10 to 15!

You can buy standardised 1% strength Banaba powder by the kilo. PM me if you want to know where. So using that method and making your own caps then to give your self a 10mg dose you would need to consume 1000mg or 1 gram of the 1% Banaba powder which I would guess would work out a far more cost effective route.

SweetHeart said:

Xyzzy,

Are you going to take the BM in tandem with the Banaba when you get more BM? Please could you put some BGs on here that are purely from taking the Banaba?

Although I bought the Banaba for me, I will feed it to my guinea pig if it'll work nicely together with the BM. The BM alone gives him a really crampy tum.

Read some real horror stories about Statins yesterday. Got the heebeegeebees about them now......

Julia

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Yes no problem will be on pure Banaba now for a few days anyway. I am gradually going to up the dose and test as I go. There is little written about how much is needed. Based on those human studies have started today at 4 caps a day to get around 12mg of Glucosol. Will TRY and keep my carbs about the same and then see if my BG's change at all.

I also think that as it acts as an insulin substitute it may only be effective with main meals where you would normally need an insulin response but I'm hoping it will do a bit for background BG's as well.

Unlike BM writings on Banaba say it can hypo you in too large doses so I'm being a bit wary not to take too much.

Yes I have read similar things about statins particularly a Dutch study that linked it to short term memory loss. Also it may "leach" other vitamins and minerals as well as getting rid of the nasty bad Cholesterol.

As my heroes the Swedes also reckon high Cholesterol is bad and my Cholesterol was still quite high on my last test I'm sticking with the 40mg of Simvastatin for the moment and trying to counter any possible leaching by taking a broad spectrum multi vitamin and mineral tab each day (yes another pill in addition to the BM, Cinnamon, Banaba & Chromium & ...). The one I'm taking is just an age 50+ one that you can get from Tesco or Asda. I choose the 50+ one as its has the best Zinc content which is also supposed to be good for diabetics (read that on the main site somewhere).

:lol:

daren't post the full list cos Sid and CatherineCherub would go mental, probably kill them both with heart failure :lol: :shh: :silent:

BUT

in my defence I nowadays never much see a BG reading above 5.7 and I'm eating well and feeling great!

Found another one called Gymnema.

Looks again to be reasonably well tested but I'm not clear how it works. Seems to imply its active ingredient is chemically similar to glucose so the receptors in the gut that take up glocose take up the Gymnema and thus will maintain low BG's. A few suggest it may stimulate insulin production which is defo out for me as I want to maintain my knackered panc as best I can.

Anybody else come across or used this one?

oooh look at those lovely fours you get, wish I could do that, well done! If you continue getting those consistently you might get a sub 5 HbA1c which would really freak your doc out. :lol:

Banaba trial update. Swapped off the Bitter Melon onto the Banaba. Taking 4 caps in the morning and 4 at night so an equivelent dose of 24mg / day of corosolic acid.

My averages this week 5.0, 5.3 (included an Indian), 5.2 (included a high carb mothers day tea), 5.2, 5.4 (included that I forgot to take all my dinner time meds [Met,BM & BAN] until I did my two hour reading!), 5.2, 5.1. Max 2 hour readings were 6.1's for the Indian, the mothers day tea and on the night I forgot to take anything. On the night I forgot only had a 28g carb dinner and doubled what I would normally spike at.

So from this I'm concluding it behaves very similar to Bitter Melon. Not a lot off fasting levels but good spike control.

More BM has arrived so will be doing a combo from now on.

Still researching this new Gymnema stuff. From what I read its supposed to be the most powerful of all the "natural" ones. Will let you all know what I find.

Yes I would be doing the same getting rid of the Gliclazide so long as the BG's stay good.

Good luck!

The Gymnema sounds too good to be true from what I've been reading about. Excellent at blood glucose control, does weight loss and stops cravings for sugar. All well documented. Like BM is a prescribed treatment in the Philippines so Gymnema is in a number of other countries like Vietnam. The cost of Gymnema looks a lot cheaper than Banaba and again you can buy by the kilo if you want to roll your own caps.

On the blood glucose control aspects still have some nagging doubts. The research papers I've found say it works really well and is very powerful stuff for controlling blood glucose levels with between 10 and 60% level reductions seen dependent on the dose. It seems to work in three ways. It suppresses the livers glucose release like Metformin does which is fine by me, it blocks the glucose take up receptors in the gut which again is fine by me but it does stimulate insulin production which I don't particularly like. However it stimulates insulin production just by making the cells that produce insulin cell walls more permeable i.e. allows insulin to flow out of the better. Not clever enough to know if that means it actually ends up forcing the pancreas to work harder which is what I want to avoid. Still reading...