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15th
World Congress Clinical Nutrition
19th
– 22nd September 2010 El Sokhna Resort - Egypt
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Copyright © 2010.
WCCN2010.COM
All rights reserved |
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Support of Diabetes type 2
management with standardized
Bittermelon extract (Charantia
momordica)
Martin Schatta , Cologne, Germany
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Bitter Melon [BM] , Bitter Gourd (Momordica
charantia) is a green vegetable,
grown and cultivated in Asia,
African and several countries of
South America. Besides its daily
usage as vegetable since hundred of
years, the whole fruit consumption
is an integral part of traditional
medicine in these regions. The
experience out of this integrated
bitter melon into the traditional
treatment and prevention of various
diseases, impaired well-being and
disorders. Treatments focus on
diabetes, infectious diseases
(topical and systemic) and various
metabolic disorders. Diabetes
mellitus II [DM] and impaired
Glucose Tolerance [IGT] are amongst
the most and rapid increasing
diseases in the world with a major
impact on individual health and the
economic burden of all societies.
The number of people suffering from
DM II is estimated to be 285 Mil and
with IGT to 344 Mil worldwide. Total
health costs are estimated to 380 bn
US$ per year. Besides the standard
pharmaceutical therapy, education
and training as well as dietary
management play a major role in the
management and prevention of IGT and
DM II. Actually, PubMed database
documents around 480 publications on
bitter gourd as a mirror of the wide
spread scientific and clinical
interest in this plant and 119
articles on BM and Diabetes.
Regarding Diabetes the majority of
the published articles approve the
positive influence on controlling
blood glucose levels and long term
support of anti-diabetic treatment
and management (HbA1c values) but
reviewing the clinical background
most of the studies are missing GCP
standards and control groups. Also
the mechanism of the anti-diabetic
effect has been studied and showed
in experimental animal studies. Most
studies have been performed with
aqueous or ethanol extracts not
showing the differential ingredients
and their stable presence over all
applications. This may be one of the
major reasons for the instability of
results and effects. The European
Union regulates Health Claims on
food recently by the directive 1924
/ 2006 reviewing over 44,000
submitted Health Claims. The
directive requests scientific
background and Clinical Trials for
Health food similar to registered
drugs. There is no doubt that Health
Claims on food have to be approved
and documented, reproducible and
predictive but not following the
logistic of the specific drug law on
single substances. Extracts of
plants and fruits standardized on
one or more ingredients often show
adverse effects or contrary results
compared to total fruit or plant
consumption and lead to a complete
misunderstanding of traditional
medicine managements and its results
and experience. It is helpful and
makes sense to identify
pharmacologically active substances
in plants and fruits and to create
registered drugs out of them but
that is not the way of Health Food
and Supplements. The strategy of new
Health Food is the "all in" strategy
which means to copy the whole fruit
with all active ingredients into the
capsule, juice, sachet, powder or
tablet. The complexity of
composition of plant ingredients ,
the interdependence of substances,
enzymes and different active
molecules cannot be copied by
extraction of single substances,
this paradigm has to be changed.
Bittermelon is one example where we
could show that it works with a
sophisticated technology and
acceptable economical costs.
Clinical trials could demonstrate
the safety and efficacy of the
Bittermelon product and protect
individuals with IGT to manifest
into DM II . Now further clinical
trials are running to demonstrate
the reproducibility of experiences
and knowledge from traditional
medicine into modern and practicable
presentation of application and
consumption regarding the
requirements of modern daily life.
Regarding the extremely increasing
direct and indirect costs of chronic
diseases and the economic burden in
all societies of the world gives
additional arguments for Health Food
consumption or its technological
copies as so called Supplements as
part of a whole supportive care
management in the prevention of
chronic diseases. Diabetes is one of
the most important metabolic
diseases with severe impact on
follow up organ dysfunctions and
increasing economic burdens. Bitter
Melon consumption as original fruit
or its dry powder "all in" copy
could be shown as effective
additional care to manage the
disease and to avoid follow up organ
dysfunctions due to an effective
glucose control and diabetes
management .
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