Sweet result of Bitter Melon

Millions of people suffers from different illness but if we are not picky and ready to be healthy, the nature offers us a wide variety of fruits, vegetable, herbs and spices that are affordable, no side effects and can keep us healthy.

Today, people can spend thousands of dollars for medications and over-the-counter drugs to keep them selves healthy as they don't have any choice. More and more people suffers from Type 2 diabetes
which means have an impaired ability to convert the sugar in their blood into energy in their muscles. This is partly because they don't produce enough insulin, and partly because their fat and muscle cells don't use insulin effectively, a phenomenon known as 'insulin resistance'.

Garvan scientists involved in the project, Drs Jiming Ye and Nigel Turner, both stress that while there are well known diabetes drugs on the market that also activate AMPK, they can have side effects. Bitter Melon contains four very promising bioactive compounds. These compounds activate a protein called AMPK, which is well known for regulating fuel metabolism and enabling glucose uptake, processes which are impaired in diabetics. The four compounds isolated in bitter melon perform a very similar action to that of exercise, in that they activate AMPK, which in turn mediates the movement of glucose transporters to the cell surface, a very important step in the uptake of glucose from the circulation into tissues in the body. This is a major reason that exercise is recommended as part of the normal treatment program for someone with Type 2 diabetes.

Folk wisdom has it that ampalaya (bitter melon) helps to prevent or counteract type-II diabetes. A recent scientific study at JIPMER, India has proved that ampalaya increases insulin sensitivity. Not only that laboratory tests suggest that compounds in bitter melon might be effective for treating HIV infection . As most compounds isolated from bitter melon that impact HIV have either been proteins or glycoproteins lectins), neither of which are well-absorbed, it is unlikely that oral intake of bitter melon will slow HIV in infected people. It is possible oral ingestion of bitter melon could offset negative effects of anti-HIV drugs, if a test tube study can be shown to be applicable to people. In one preliminary clinical trial, an enema form of a bitter melon extract showed some benefits in people infected with HIV (Zhang 1992). Clearly more research is necessary before this could be recommended.

"The advantage of bitter melon is that there are no known side effects," said Dr Ye. Professor Yang Ye, from the Shanghai Institute and a specialist in natural products chemistry. "Practitioners of Chinese medicine have used it for hundreds of years to good effect."

"Bitter melon was described as "bitter in taste, non-toxic, expelling evil heat, relieving fatigue and illuminating" in the famous Compendium of Materia Medica by Li Shizhen (1518-1593), one of the greatest physicians, pharmacologists and naturalists in China's history," said Professor Ye. "It is interesting, now that we have the technology, to analyse why it has been so effective."

The other realm showing the most promise related to bitter melon is as an immunomodulator. One clinical trial found very limited evidence that bitter melon might improve immune cell function in people with cancer, but this needs to be verified and amplified in other research. If proven correct this is another way bitter melon could help people infected with HIV.

Regardless of its efficacy in this regard, it is sold in the Philippines as a food supplement and elixir for this purpose.