Dining for diabetes

Sometimes phrases that convey timeless wisdom become so popular that they lose their meaning. In any junk-pop lyric or sports interview these days it seems mandatory to include Nietzsche’s “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, but the words in the mouths of fabulously well-remunerated teenagers lack the resonance that their original author would have intended. In the field of health we bandy around Hippocrates “let your food be thy medicine and your medicine be thy food” like shrimp cocktails at a Hollywood B-list pool party. It is folly though to import early Iron Age wisdom direct into our post-modern culture without thought. Medicines that exist these days are a far cry from those of Hippocrates time when folk would try to sweat out disease by burying themselves in animal poo. The real gist of this aphorism from Hippocrates that we can hold onto today is that food should be your first attempt to prevent disease and even heal your disease; medicines can come after you have tried food. If you are too much a child of the 21st century to imagine that food could be as powerful as medicine in healing potential then think again; there is plentiful evidence that food has healing power and in fact a new study has shown that common culinary herbs act in a similar way to modern anti-diabetes medications.

In the new study researchers from the University of Illinois prepared extracts of marjoram (Origanum majorana), rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), Mexican oregano (Lippia graveolens), and Green oregano (Origanum vulgare). The used two forms of each of these plants to prepare their extracts; one from greenhouse grown plants and the other from commercially purchased dried forms of the herbs. They then tested the extracts against enzymes that are targets for anti-diabetes drugs. One enzyme is DPP-4 that plays a role in insulin secretion and is targeted by drugs like metformin and sitagliptin. The other enzyme is PTP1B which is involved in insulin signalling but finding drugs that will inhibit it is proving difficult.

Firstly the researchers found that the greenhouse grown herbs contained more polyphenols than the commercial dried herbs. They also found that greenhouse grown rosemary, Mexican oregano, and marjoram were the best inhibitors of DPP-4. However, extracts of the dried commercial herbs were the best inhibitors of PTP1B.

There is no suggestion that if you are using anti-diabetes medications that you should replace them with these herbs but this does illustrate that your food can work in the same way as your medicine and before you get sick why not eat as if your life depends on it…because it does.