Bitter Melon is Strong Treatment for Type 2 Diabetes

A research team from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica have found that bitter melon, a vegetable and traditional Chinese medicine, contains a powerful treatment for Type 2 diabetes. These four compounds all appear to activate the enzyme AMPK, a protein well known for regulating fuel metabolism and enabling glucose uptake.

People with Type 2 diabetes 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’.