Will Traditional Chinese Medicine Reduce Diabetes Risk

New research published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Medicine shows that Chinese herbal medicine may have potential solutions for someone with prediabetes.
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) focuses on keeping balance in the body in order to treat disease, according to study author Dr. Chun-Su Yuan, director of the Tang Center for Herbal Medicine Research at the University of Chicago.
"It's a more holistic approach, using medicine to change the overall body function instead of very specifically on symptoms and organs [like Western medicine]," said Yuan, who is also the editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Chinese Medicine.
In this particular study, researchers used TCM's principles with modern medicine by selecting herbs that have a proven track record of helping those with diabetes.
In the double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study, 389 participants with impaired glucose tolerance, a risk factor for Type 2 diabetes, were tested every three months to monitor the development (or no development) of the disease.
Half of the participants received a Chinese herbal mixture called Tianqi, a capsule containing 10 Chinese herbal medicines, including Astragali Radix and Coptidis Rhizoma, which may improve glucose levels. All subjects received dietary education and were told to keep their physical fitness routines the same.
The researchers found that Tianqi appeared to reduce the risk of diabetes among participants by 32.1 percent, compared to the placebo group. By the end of the study, 125 participants in the Tianqi group had achieved normal glucose tolerance, compared to 89 in the placebo group. Of those who went on to develop diabetes, 56 subjects in the placebo had diabetes compared to 36 in the Tianqi group.
There were no reports of severe side effects from the Tianqi.
"We are very excited about this," Yuan said. "It's an advantage that we did not observe bad side effects."
Researchers believe that Chinese medicine may be just as effective at treating diabetes as Western medicine.
"The data from our study showed that Chinese medicine has comparable effects [to Western drugs]," Yuan said.
However, since this study was first conducted in China, it is important that the study's effectiveness be seen in other countries. Further research would be needed to focus quality control issues surrounding the use of herbal medicines.
"It's not easy to do controlled trials of herbal medicine and this study did it and showed promising effects," Yuan said. "But we need to do more studies with the possibility that in five to seven years TCM has better utility in [the US]."
Reference: Fox News
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