DIABETES TREATMENT W/CHINESE HERBS #4

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
by Subhuti Dharmananda, Ph.D., Director, Institute for Traditional Medicine, Portland, Oregon

EVALUATING HERBS AND FORMULAS

Some initial laboratory animal studies of blood-sugar lowering effects of herbs were conducted in China, Korea, and Japan during the period 1927-1952 (6,13). Rehmannia, atractylodes, scrophularia, polygonatum, phellodendron, coptis, lycium bark, ho-shou-wu, yu-chu, lonicera, ginseng, and alisma were shown to lower blood sugar, sometimes after producing an initial rise in blood sugar; in several cases, the hypoglycemic effect occurred when the herbs were used to treat blood sugar increases induced by epinephrine.

Since the 1960's, a much invigorated program of diabetes research arose. More sophisticated laboratory studies were made possible by the finding that the toxic chemical alloxan selectively destroys the beta cells of the pancreas. Thus, mice, rabbits, or other laboratory animals treated with this compound suffer from a diabetic syndrome quite similar to that of a person who has insulin-dependent diabetes (type I, early onset). Dr. S. Nagayoshi was able to report that Rehmannia Eight Formula reduced blood sugar in alloxan-treated rabbits in a 1960 journal report (6). Comparing the herbal effects in normal laboratory animals with those in alloxan-treated animals provides some indication of the mechanisms by which the herbs affect blood glucose levels. In more detailed investigations, one can examine the impact of the herbs on hyperglycemia induced by other means, such as epinephrine (imitating stress responses).

Further progress along these lines has been made with studies of a genetic strain of mice, first reported in 1979, that gain weight unusually and begin developing a type 2 diabetes after about 10 weeks of growth. These mice were used in a study of the hypoglycemic role of ginseng and its active constituents in the traditional formula Ginseng and Gypsum Combination (24).

Clinical trials have also been conducted, most of them starting in the 1970's. At the 9th Symposium of Oriental Medicine in 1975, Dr.Takahide Kuwaki reported on partial success in treating 15 diabetes patients with traditional herb formulas; nine of the patients treated (duration 2 to 36 months) showed notable improvements (6). In Beijing, a Diabetes Unit was established in 1975 at the Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine at the Capital Hospital; a summary of their recommendations has been published in English (14); Similarly, in Changchun, the Kuancheng Institute of Diabetes was established; researchers there recently published results of a highly successful clinical trial of herbs used for treating diabetic ketonuria, in which 28 of 33 patients showed marked improvements after consuming a complex formula comprised almost entirely of herbs that individually have hypoglycemic actions (15). These Chinese clinics, and other facilities in China and Japan, have provided herbal treatments to thousands of patients with diabetes, and the results have often been monitored and reported.

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