American Ginseng Berry Extract: Weight loss aid and diabetic cure

And no one seems to sell it. I have bought 2 from chinese distributors saying they sell the berry but they sold me the root.


http://www.ginseng-seed.com/ginseng_berry_extract.htm

For more than 2000 years, traditional Chinese medicine has used ginseng root to treat a variety of ailments. This study focused instead on substances found in the ginseng berry, which has very different concentrations of ginsenosides, the substances thought to be medically useful.

"Ginseng berry has a distinctive chemical profile and has not previously been used for therapy," said Chun-Su Yuan, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of anesthesia and critical care at the University of Chicago and director of the study. "We were stunned by how different the berry is from the root and by how effective it is in correcting the multiple metabolic abnormalities associated with diabetes."

Yuan's team, which included researchers from the Tang Center, anesthesia, clinical pharmacology and medicine, studied the effects of the extract, made from the pulp of the berry. They also studied one particular substance known as ginsenoside Re, which is concentrated in ginseng berries but quite scarce in the root.
They tested the extract by injecting it once a day into mice with a gene defect that causes weight gain and type 2 diabetes. They found that ---

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Daily injections of 150 mg/kg of the ginseng berry extract restored normal blood-sugar levels in diabetic mice. Blood-glucose levels fell from 222 mg/dl (quite high for a mouse) to 137 mg/dl (normal) within 12 days. Treated mice also had better scores on a glucose tolerance test, which measures how quickly the mice could remove excess glucose from the blood.
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The extract caused diabetic mice, which were also obese, to lose more than 10 percent of their body weight in 12 days. Untreated mice gained five percent of their weight in 12 days. The treated mice ate 15 percent less and were 35 percent more active than untreated mice. Once the injections stopped, weight gain gradually resumed.
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The extract improved insulin secretion and insulin sensitivity, both of which were abnormal in mice with diabetes.
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Treated diabetic mice had 30 percent lower cholesterol levels than untreated diabetic mice (117mg/dl versus 169mg/dl).

The extract had no detectable effect on normal mice.

Two obese diabetic mice: The treated mouse (left) lost 10% of his weight in 12 days; the untreated mouse (right) gained 5%.

Tests using a ginsenoside Re alone found that it had all of the anti-diabetic but none of the obesity-fighting activities of the extract.

"This novel compound could serve as the basis for a whole new class of anti-diabetic medications," said Yuan, who is also working to isolate other substances from the extract that contributed to the weight loss.

There is a pressing need for new and more effective drugs for both diabetes and obesity. Diabetes is the seventh leading killer in the U.S. Type 2 diabetes affects almost six percent of the U.S. population and 18.4 percent of those over 65. The cost of the disease is estimated at $105 billion each year.

The U.S. Surgeon General estimates that 61 percent of adults are overweight or obese. Obesity -- weighing more than 20 percent over your maximum recommended body weight -- contributes to an estimated 300,000 deaths each year. The economic cost of obesity in the U.S. was about $117 billion in 2000. The rising rate of obesity also contributes to the growing prevalence of type 2 diabetes.

"Since this berry contains agents that are effective against both obesity and diabetes, the ginseng fruit has enormous promise as a source of new drugs," said Yuan, who has worked with the University to apply for a patent on the development of ginsenoside Re as a diabetes medication.

"The next step is to isolate the other substances in the extract, find out whether they also effect glucose regulation or weight gain, learn how they work and determine the safe and effective dose."

Additional authors of the study were Anoja Attele, Yun-Ping Zhou, Jing-Tian Xie, Ji An Wu, Liu Zhang, Lucy Dey, William Pugh and Paul Rue of the University of Chicago and Kenneth Polonsky, now at Washington University in St. Louis. The research was funded by the Tang Family Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.
 
Thanx. I have been netting it for 4 months now and am getting frustrated with it. Found 1 more chinese source and I will try it next month. But am beginning to distrust the chinese on this matter.
 
England, Just in case you need a bit of what I have found.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/05/020524073803.htm

Ginseng Berry Extract Shows Promise For Diabetes, Obesity

An extract from the ginseng berry shows real promise in treating diabetes and obesity, reports a research team from the University of Chicago's Tang Center for Herbal Medicine Research. In the June issue of the journal Diabetes, they show that the extract completely normalized blood glucose levels, improved sensitivity to insulin, lowered cholesterol levels, and decreased weight by reducing appetite and increasing activity levels in mice bred to develop diabetes.

http://www.hunterdonhealthcare.org/text/WebMD/Conditions/Diabetes/Ginseng_Berry.asp
ealth Information

Health News from WebMD
Ginseng Berry Shows Promise for Diabetes

Extract Lowers Blood Sugar and Weight in Mouse Tests

Salynn Boyles

May 24, 2002 -- An extract from the ginseng berry may one day help diabetics with their two greatest challenges: blood sugar control and weight control.

"Since this berry contains agents that are effective against both obesity and diabetes, the ginseng fruit has enormous promise as a source of new drugs," says study director Chun-Su Yuan, MD, PhD, of the University of Chicago's Tang Center for Herbal Medicine Research, in a news release.

For years, doctors have been looking for newer and better treatments for obesity and diabetes. Often, the two conditions occur together. Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S. Type 2 diabetes, characterized by an inability to use the hormone insulin effectively (a phenomenon called insulin resistance), is the most common form, affecting nearly 6% of the population. And those numbers are rising, possibly due to rising obesity in the U.S.

In recent years, scientists have identified a substance in the popular supplement made from ginseng root that can help stabilize blood sugar levels in diabetics. Now, doctors have found that an extract from the berry of the ginseng plant is even more potent -- at least in animals.

The study is published in the June issue of Diabetes, a journal from the American Diabetes Association.

In the study, diabetic mice that were injected daily with ginseng berry extract had complete normalization of blood sugar levels, improved sensitivity to insulin, and lowered cholesterol levels.

The treatment also prompted dramatic weight loss in the animals, which were also obese. The mice lost more than 10% of their body weight in 12 days, while the diabetic mice who didn't get ginseng berry extract gained 5% more weight. The treated mice ate 15% less food and were 35% more active than the mice not receiving the ginseng berry extract.

The extract had no detectable effect on normal mice.

"We were stunned by how different the berry is from the root and by how effective it is in correcting the multiple ... abnormalities associated with diabetes," says Yuan.

Yuan tells WebMD that a particular component of ginseng, known as ginsenoside Re, may be responsible for its potent antidiabetic effect. The substance is concentrated in the berry and is scarce in the root. He is also working to isolate an unidentified component of the extract that he believes is linked to the dramatic weight loss.

"What we can say at this point is that the research is promising," he tells WebMD. "But we don't yet know if this will work in humans. That is the next step."

Many diabetes treatments showing promise in animals have proven disappointing in humans, says ginseng researcher Vladimir Vuksan, PhD. He is associate director of the Risk Factor Modification Center at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto.

In a study reported two years ago, Vuksan and colleagues found that diabetic patients who took a ginseng supplement made from American-grown root had moderate reductions in blood glucose following meals.

He is still studying ginseng, but he does not recommend that diabetics take currently available ginseng root supplements. That is because there is no way of knowing the composition of the ginseng from product to product, or where it was grown.

"Standardization from product to product is a huge problem, and manufacturers don't list where the ginseng comes from," he tells WebMD. "Ginseng is grown all over the world, but our studies showed this benefit [only with] American ginseng. Some of the ginsengs we have looked at actually raise blood sugar levels, and that would obviously not be good for a diabetic."



http://www.uchospitals.edu/news/2002/

May 24, 2002
Ginseng berry extract shows promise for diabetes, obesity
An extract from the ginseng berry shows real promise in treating diabetes and obesity, reports a research team from the University of Chicago's Tang Center for Herbal Medicine Research.
 
As always, great info Cold. You always do your research! Admirable, I love reading your posts
 
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