Natural herbal supplement

[HR-Guy]

The main ingredient seems to be Bitter Melon. Popoular in SE Asia and the Sub Continent where, if memory serves, the rate of Type 2 Diabetes is rising exponentially.

Funny you mention the bitter root. I ordered some seeds on Amazon and will be growing them soon. I read out bitter melon and you can find the melon in the Asian grocery stores. I did read that you have to watch the dosage due to that you can move down too fast on your glucose level.

 

[Guzzler]

Funny you mention the bitter root. I ordered some seeds on Amazon and will be growing them soon. I read out bitter melon and you can find the melon in the Asian grocery stores. I did read that you have to watch the dosage due to that you can move down too fast on your glucose level.

This is just my opinion and in the great scheme of things it means nowt but I think that the reasons for the popularity of Bitter Melon and other herbal remedies in developing countries may be down to finances, availability and cost of medical care and, dare I say it, a perception of 'I can eat anything I like as long as I take this pill'.

I am now hiding behind the sofa, let me know when it is safe to come out...

 

[Mr_Pot]

Funny you mention the bitter root. I ordered some seeds on Amazon and will be growing them soon. I read out bitter melon and you can find the melon in the Asian grocery stores. I did read that you have to watch the dosage due to that you can move down too fast on your glucose level.

Apart from its possible BG benefits what does bitter melon taste like, do you cook it, how do you eat it?

 

[HR-Guy]

Not the best, tastes like a bitter green apple. I stir fried it with veggies and onions. They have it in pill form in the vitamin shops, must do not like the flavor. I figured if I can grow it, I will figure out how to make it taste a little better from practice runs. I was a little worried due to my numbers are really well controlled and did not want to dip too low.

 

[Sparky_1]

Interesting. You don't want to increase Metformin. Is that because of the notorious gastric side effects? But what is in this mystery supplement? I hear Bitter Melon, which is also known for its laxative effect and stomach aches.(I have used BM myself) What else is in this potion, and are these safe for long term use? I was prescribed Actos, and then they discovered it can cause strokes but way on down the line. Avandia too, Other meds get pulled for safety concerns. But herbal supps are not monitored or controlled as well, so they too can prove harmful (fatal even as in digitalis, salacylic acid, belladonna, et al) So a marketing blurb that uses the term herbal is not a guarantee that it is safe or effective,

Edit: BTW Metformin is also derived from a herb, and could be considered herbal, But the plant itself is toxic to humans, so needs to be processed to remove the toxins hence it is a pill.

I am a user of CuraLin. It has no harmful side effects. Pharmaceutical drugs are Drugs and always with side effects harmful to the body. I have been taking 3 CuraLin per day since early june and I have been in the normal non-diabetic range ever since taking the first one. I can eat high carb foods with no effect. £59. for 180 tablets at 3 per day = £20. Per month. It is not necessary to take 6 per day. Herbal products cannot be trademarked as they are natural, growing in the earth. Therefore Big Pharma cannot make money on them nor can doctors who make money giving them to their patients, so they are hardly going to recommend them are they? CuraLin works right from the start. It is not harmful and has no side effects. The £16. trial package will let you see that this is a miracle product from the earth combining 10 known harmless plants. The herbs have been used for eons in different cultures.

 

[Dr Snoddy]

I am a user of CuraLin. It has no harmful side effects. Pharmaceutical drugs are Drugs and always with side effects harmful to the body. I have been taking 3 CuraLin per day since early june and I have been in the normal non-diabetic range ever since taking the first one. I can eat high carb foods with no effect. £59. for 180 tablets at 3 per day = £20. Per month. It is not necessary to take 6 per day. Herbal products cannot be trademarked as they are natural, growing in the earth. Therefore Big Pharma cannot make money on them nor can doctors who make money giving them to their patients, so they are hardly going to recommend them are they? CuraLin works right from the start. It is not harmful and has no side effects. The £16. trial package will let you see that this is a miracle product from the earth combining 10 known harmless plants. The herbs have been used for eons in different cultures.

Do you work for Curalin? Please direct me to all the efficacy and safety studies.

 

[Sparky_1]

Do you work for Curalin? Please direct me to all the efficacy and safety studies.

I do not work for Curalin. Please do your own research as i did before going ahead.

 

[Sparky_1]

Hi

I just wondered if anyone has heard of a company called CuraLife.co. They produce a natural herbal supplement called Curalin which helps to regulate blood sugar levels I thought I'd give it a try because since moving to the Exeter area my sugar levels have been increasing basically due to the fact that my new gp surgery does not believe that type 2 diabetics should be testing therefore they do not supply needles and strips and I can't always afford to buy these.

I bought a trial pack of Curalin and within a couple of days my sugar levels have come down from 8.9 - 9 to 5.4 on waking in the morning and I also noticed that my sugars have not been spiking after eating carbs with my meals. My sugars have been kept within normal levels. Their trial pack is £16 for 30 but for a month's supply it nearly £60 which is quite expensive but on the other hand they seem to work for me without any side effects.

I just wondered if anyone else has tried these and if they helped them?

Mallins

Hi, I started on Curalin early June this year. After taking my first blood sugar test my reading was 4.7. The following week it levelled out into the low to mid 5’s. I have been taking 2 to 3per day and I have not gone into the diabetic range since I first started on CuraLin in June. I can eat sensible portions of high carb foods now without spiking blood sugar levels. My hbac1 was 7.1 before I found about CuraLin. I am going for another test shortly which will be 3 months after taking CuraLin. It works out to £20. per month taking 3 per day. I started out cautiously and this amount worked for me. To me and my friend who also takes it, it is a miracle. I found out that the herbs have been used for eons in other cultures.

 

[Dr Snoddy]

I do not work for Curalin. Please do your own research as i did before going ahead.

I have found some small scale studies done on some of the individual ingredients but cannot find any independent studies on the Curalin combination. Having read the sales blurb on many of the sales sites I am very sceptical. The blurbs use the same statements, often contradictory, and language as many other sellers of snake oil. Also, every site that imitates a possible independent review turns out to be selling Curalin!

 

[Sparky_1]

I have found some small scale studies done on some of the individual ingredients but cannot find any independent studies on the Curalin combination. Having read the sales blurb on many of the sales sites I am very sceptical. The blurbs use the same statements, often contradictory, and language as many other sellers of snake oil. Also, every site that imitates a possible independent review turns out to be selling Curalin!

The proof is in the pudding! End of conversation.

 

[Sparky_1]

If it is such a miracle, I wonder why it isn't prescribed for general use?

Pharmaceutical companies cannot make money on natural products as they they cannot be trademarked. Ditto doctors.

 

[JohnEGreen]

I don't eat puddings either. Unless they're low carb that is.

 

[Guzzler]

Bitter melon grows widely in tropical and sub tropical areas. It is cultivated all over India and India has one of the fastest growth rates of T2D only outstripped by China if memory serves. Strange how a herbal remedy so readily available has not been targetted by Big Pharma so as to isolate and/or synthesise the active ingredient/s. I am not saying that it does not work only that if it was proven to work then Bayer would have been on it like a greyhound on a rabbit.

 

[JohnEGreen]

Mind you did find this on BME
https://www.nhs.uk/news/cancer/bitter-melon-in-cancer-test/
http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/0008-5472.CAN-09-3438v1

"
This was a laboratory study looking at how a concentrated extract of bitter melon affected human breast cancer cells in culture. It also compared how exposure to bitter melon extract (BME) affected non-cancerous human cells.

The researchers report that extract of bitter melon (Momordica charantia) has sugar- and fat-lowering properties."


"Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers among women in the United States. Although there are effective drugs for treating advanced stages of breast cancers, women eventually develop resistance. One of the approaches to control breast cancer is prevention through diet, which inhibits one or more neoplastic events and reduces cancer risk. In this study, we have used human breast cancer cells, MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231, and primary human mammary epithelial cells as an in vitro model to assess the efficacy of bitter melon (Momordica charantia) extract (BME) as an anticancer agent. BME treatment of breast cancer cells resulted in a significant decrease in cell proliferation and induced apoptotic cell death. Apoptosis of breast cancer cells was accompanied by increased poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase cleavage and caspase activation. Subsequent studies showed that BME treatment of breast cancer cells inhibited survivin and claspin expression. Fluorescence-activated cell sorting analysis suggested that MCF-7 cells treated with BME accumulated during the G2-M phase of the cell cycle. Further studies revealed that BME treatment enhanced p53, p21, and pChk1/2 and inhibited cyclin B1 and cyclin D1 expression, suggesting an additional mechanism involving cell cycle regulation. Together, these results show that BME modulates signal transduction pathways for inhibition of breast cancer cell growth and can be used as a dietary supplement for prevention of breast cancer. Cancer Res; 70(5); 1925–31"

"This was a basic laboratory study that found that putting bitter melon extract on breast cancer cells in culture caused cell death. As this study was conducted on cells in the laboratory there is limited relevance to humans without further research. It does not provide sufficient evidence to suggest that BME supplements or consuming bitter melon can prevent or treat breast cancer.

Cells grown in cell culture can behave very differently to those in the human body. Even in culture, cells’ behaviour can vary depending on the type of nutrient-containing liquid (medium) they are grown in. A limitation of the present study is that the cancerous and non-cancerous cells were grown in different types of medium, which may have affected their response to the BME.

A further limitation of the study is that it did not isolate which chemical or chemicals in BME caused the effects observed. Much more additional research is needed to assess whether chemicals within bitter melon have any potential in breast cancer drug development or any ability to prevent cancer when ingested."

 

[Sparky_1]

Bitter melon grows widely in tropical and sub tropical areas. It is cultivated all over India and India has one of the fastest growth rates of T2D only outstripped by China if memory serves. Strange how a herbal remedy so readily available has not been targetted by Big Pharma so as to isolate and/or synthesise the active ingredient/s. I am not saying that it does not work only that if it was proven to work then Bayer would have been on it like a greyhound on a rabbit.

Desr Guzzler, herbal products cannot be trademarked. They cannot claim it to be their own product.

 

[Guzzler]

Desr Guzzler, herbal products cannot be trademarked. They cannot claim it to be their own product.

They can however trademark a synthesised model. The trouble with most herbal 'remedies' is dosage.

Edited typo.

 

[Oldvatr]

Do you work for Curalin? Please direct me to all the efficacy and safety studies.

I had a look too, and there are no trial study reports in the archives I use, There is a lot of hype for this product, and as others have said, if it was effective, then the pharma boys would have isolated the active ingredients and symthesised a medication. They have done that for many natural products, from insulin to Metformin to aspirin, digitalis, morphine, and now CDB to name just a few. I find the hype for this mixture to be very suspicious indeed, and it is worrying that the OP is not prepared to enter into serious discussion on it leaves me with a feeling there is another agenda going on.

The trials for some of the individual ingredients on their own do not support the claims being made, but the OEM supplier is claiming scientific evidence, but then does not provide any in support. They make big thing about having 189 Genuine Reviews of their product, but only list 59, and anyway on a basis of (n=1) trials, this is a small sample base, especialy looking at their potential target audience in the Asian continent, which as has also been said is becoming a world leader in diabetes sufferers.

I have used a few of the ingredient myself recently, and posted my experiences on this site. But the results I got were limited in effect, and I suffered side effects too from them. So they are not on their own very powerful (as shown in the limited trials that have been done by others. They are also not without possible side effects, and also may have contraindications with other meds we use say for heart and cardio health.

I am concerned that the long term effects are not being monitored it being a herbal remedy, and so if there is anything lurking in the background it will go unnoticed and undocumented,

Final comment - private purchase of this product, and purchasing of test strips in support etc, makes this an expensive resolution for T2D. I see they are planning to bring out variants to cure other ailments, as one would. Again I fear this is another snake oil venture as also said by others here.

 

[Oldvatr]

Hi, I started on Curalin early June this year. After taking my first blood sugar test my reading was 4.7. The following week it levelled out into the low to mid 5’s. I have been taking 2 to 3per day and I have not gone into the diabetic range since I first started on CuraLin in June. I can eat sensible portions of high carb foods now without spiking blood sugar levels. My hbac1 was 7.1 before I found about CuraLin. I am going for another test shortly which will be 3 months after taking CuraLin. It works out to £20. per month taking 3 per day. I started out cautiously and this amount worked for me. To me and my friend who also takes it, it is a miracle. I found out that the herbs have been used for eons in other cultures.

Mandrake root has also been used since the Dark Ages, but it is a known killer and is not safe. The Puffer fish is a delicacy in some places, but again can be fatal. Arsenic is natural, and used to be used for medecine, but it too has nasty side effects. Opium was smoked in recent times, but it is not advised nowadays. Some fruits and vegetables can be fermented, but also have unpleasant side effects, especially the morning after.

Just because something is natural, and has been known about for years, nonetheless it can still be dangerous to use, Too much water kills, too many carrots kill, Too much Vitamin A kills.

Edit to add: In my youth we were given a daily dose of Castor Oil (YUK) as a cure all, but the super poison Ricin is also derived from the same plant.

 

[Mike d]

Puffer fish? Good God ... how dangerous can you get

 

[Hotpepper20000]

Just because it’s labeled natural doesn’t means it’s benifical.
The supplement business is a lucrative as pharmaceutical business.