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Sunday August 3, 2008

Bitter pill for sweet ailment

Insight Down Under
By JEFFREY FRANCIS


Can the humble bitter melon provide the cure for Type 2 diabetes? Scientists from Australia and China are now doing collaborative research to find out.

WITHIN the next three decades China will face what it describes as the world’s biggest “ticking time bomb” – a doubling in the number of its population suffering from Type 2 Diabetes.

Alarmingly, the number of people in China with the disease has reached a mind-boggling total of 62.5 million – a number that rivals that of the United States, Europe and Japan combined.

Traditional cure: The experiment on the bitter melon may result in producing the world’s first Western drug to meet the challenges of the Type 2 Diabetes pandemic in China.

It’s no wonder that China is concerned that by 2025 the prevalence of Type 2 Diabetes is expected to double.

The Chinese government has sent its scientists to seek Australia’s help in defusing the so-called time bomb.

Chinese experts from the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica recently visited Australia to explore new research opportunities in diabetic medication.

For the first time they are working closely with their Australian counterparts to unlock the secrets of the non-toxic bitter melon, a traditional vegetable found mostly in Asia.

Chinese plants such as herbs have been used in Western vitamin tablets for many years – and indeed in many well-known dietary supplement products in Australia. But it is only now that Australian medical scientists are seriously examining the possibility of using Asian vegetables and fruits for Western drugs.

This is because many people now believe that Chinese traditional medicines have helped cure them of their ailments. Nevertheless, there are some concerns that such medications have not gone through rigorous scientific analyses to test for their risk factors or side-effects.

The first stage of the therapeutic effects of bitter melon is being examined by Australian medical scientists with the aid of Chinese scientists at one of Australia’s biggest medical research centres – the Garvan Institute in Sydney.

The institute’s expert in cell biology Prof David James is leading a team of specially selected scientists and researchers, including China’s expert Dr Ji-Ming Ye.

They are cutting fresh bitter melons into small parts and putting them under a high-powered microscope, and Dr Ye’s wife Sharman Wong also cooks a Chinese dish of bitter melon at least once a week for the team to examine their properties.

The objective is to produce a chemical compound that could be used as the basis of a new drug for Type 2 Diabetes.

So far, four bioactive compounds have been extracted from the pulp of the bitter melon and fed to mice in an experiment.

The team discovered that the compounds increase the uptake of glucose from the blood into tissues of the body of the mice and thereby lower their blood sugar level. In comparison, mice that were not fed the compounds did not experience the same reaction.

In other words, the compounds regulate the metabolism and glucose utilisation as the main fuel of the body’s cells.

Some of the compounds in the bitter melon have not been known to exist before.

And, most significantly, there have been no side-effects in the mice.

At present, modern drugs for Type 2 Diabetes such as insulin injections are known to cause some unwanted side-effects and severe complications when combined with other medications.

Prof James, who had earlier told a television interview of the experiment, believes that the molecules is the world’s first and the institute has taken a patent on it.

But the process is still in the early stages, and it is yet to be determined which of the four chemicals could make the difference or how much of the chemicals are needed.

Human trials are expected to begin before the end of next year.

Despite its terrible taste, bitter melon has traditionally been regarded by the Chinese as having health benefits such as cooling the body, promoting digestion and brightening the eyes.

They believe that it also helps people to lose weight, keep themselves slim and reduce their cholesterol levels.

Its juice is said to be good for preventing or alleviating cough, fever, roundworms and to treat sterility in women and liver problem.

According to some Chinese medicinal practitioners, bitter melon is also used to solve menstrual problems in girls.

It is also used to treat sores, eczema and is said to be effective in curing hypertension, malaria, fever and a number of viral illnesses.

Yet none of these medicinal uses has been scientifically proven nor have any of them been disproved.

But Australian researchers and scientists are now seriously considering the advantages of Chinese traditional medicines.

The experiment on the bitter melon may result in producing the world’s first Western drug to meet the challenges of the Type 2 Diabetes pandemic that China regards as a big threat to its society.

Jeffrey Francis is editorial consultant, Australasia-Pacific Media.

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