It’s the way I tell them - are curry leaves the best kept diabetes secret?

Frank Carson was a comedian who started his career on the popular TV show Opportunity Knocks and came to fame in sitcoms and cabaret performances in the 1970s and ‘80s. He died this month in 2012 but, to me, he still lives on through his catchphrases: ‘it’s the way I tell ‘em’ and ‘it’s a cracker’, with both of these live and well in diabetes news that pops seemingly unsolicited into my inbox and, occasionally, on forums.

The vast majority of these are about miracle herbs that will reverse T1D or bring T2D to full, glorious, sugar controlled health in a matter of hours. These ludicrous messages don’t seem to be shrinking and, I suppose, as the diabetes problem grows and grows then there will be a bigger market and more desperate people to prey upon. For those of you finding yourself on this second paragraph, I have done my best to find some research on herbs that will actually give you a positive outcome in your diabetes control:

Modak, M., et al. (2007) looked at Indian herbs and drugs used for the treatment of T2D and stated that most practitioners in India use their own formulations (Seth, S. D. & Sharma, B. 2004), with India growing about 10% of the world’s medical plants as listed by the World Health Organisation WHO with fenugreek being one of those herbs consistently shown to both stimulate insulin release (Sauvaire, Y., et al 1998), whist decreasing blood glucose in doses of 2-8mg/kg body weight (Kholsa, P., Gupta, D. D. & Nagpal, R. K. 1995). Further, fenugreek has been shown to reduce blood glucose levels and increase insulin sensitivity, albeit that these findings have only been found in rats (Singh, A. B. et al. 2010 & Hamden, K. et al. 2010). Found one, that was easy!

Another oft cited herb is the curry leaf, credited with helping fight infections, boost hair and skin vitality and containing fibre, calcium, phosphorous and iron along with, vitamins C, A, B and E.

However, it does make me pause when I read India Today from January 28th 2016 suggesting that eating 10 curry leaves per day every morning for three months will help prevent what they term hereditary diabetes. What!? This sounds ridiculous, what does that even mean? Does this mean feeding a newborn with curry leaves straight from birth or will hereditary diabetes hold back for a while until the child is weaned, gets to the age of five, hits puberty, should I have been eating curry leaves throughout the month of January 2004 a few months before I was officially diagnosed with diabetes at 30 years old….? Moreover, according to the article, curry leaves can cure T2D as they have ‘weight-reducing properties’, which is not explained at all. It’s these sort of messages that flood into my inbox and, quite frankly, they’re all bollocks - I can’t find any research to back this up and I’m happy to file it next to raspberry ketones but there is an awful lot of research to suggest that curry leaves should be a staple part of your diet.

Curry leaves have, actually, been researched to find effects on T2D. Iyer, U. M. & Mani, U. V. (1990) found that 12g of curry leaf powder resulted in a reduction in both fasting and 2hr post-prandial glucose after two weeks and in a study following the exact same protocols (although only 3g curry leaf powder was administered each day) Gaikwad, V. & Ray, S. (2018) found a similar response over one month without any appreciable side-effects.

Finally, Sucheta, L, Kirupa, S. & Kavitha, R. (2015) found a significant reduction in post-prandial blood glucose with 15g of curry leaf powder taken with the meal. They also found the anti-oxidant properties of curry leaves to be beneficial for controlling the progression of diabetes - I have also found it suggested that taking 2.5g of curry leaf in a juice or paste each morning and night will give similar results (which sounds a bit grim to me but whatever suits).

So, a quick scan over this research does, indeed, suggest that herbs and spices can contribute greatly to diabetes control but, as ever, anecdotal evidence can be (and is) overblown and should not be believed for a moment.

Jain, N. (2019) concluded succinctly that curry leaves are an excellent form of antioxidants, can help regulate cholesterol, by preventing the formation of LDL cholesterol, and are a great source of many minerals and vitamins. They are also a good source of fibre and have even been shown to prevent the greying of hair. This research suggests taking 8-10 curry leaves in the morning to get the greatest diabetes benefits as mentioned previously (that’s getting dangerously close to the rubbish in India Today but, thankfully, there’s no mention of a timescale. However, that does seem to be a little difficult to decide upon. The research would tend to suggest that curry leaves should be taken daily, basically, forever but then I can’t find anything backing that up, which leaves us (no pun intended) somewhere in limbo or, perhaps, idling early on a boat in the mangoes on Kerala (I can think of worse places).

So, curry leaves do appear to provide some good diabetic healing properties and whether you take them in the form of a paste, drink or eat curries on a regular basis, I’d have to recommend its use. However, every research paper I’ve come across is clear in the need for more research and Rizvi, S. I. & Mishra, N. (2013) similarly concluded that only a few studies have shown any scientific validity.

Fenugreek and curry leaf dinner tonight anyone, it’s a cracker.

Thank you for reading, please direct any comments below or get in touch at [email protected] or 0788-7745-773 for more information or how The Diabetic Rebellion can help you control and reverse your diabetes.