Traditional Chinese medicine useful to anti-diabetic treatments: study

An extractant of traditional Chinese medicine plants could help fight the symptoms of obesity and type 2 diabetes, a New Zealand-led international study has found.

The scientists found that an antioxidant might reverse inflammation in the brain caused by a high-fat diet, study leader Dr Alex Tups, from the University of Otago, said Friday.

The team investigated whether directly stopping inflammatory processes in the brain's hypothalamus could help lower blood sugar levels and reduce insulin resistance.

They administered butein to obese mice, which blocked an inflammatory signaling pathway involved in immune responses in the brains of obese mice, Tups said in a statement.

Butein was a flavonoid derived from plants traditionally used in Chinese herbal medicine.

Administering butein either directly into the brain or orally greatly improved glucose tolerance and brain insulin signaling, he said.

The improved glucose tolerance of high-fat diet mice treated with the antioxidant was no difference noticeable between them and low fat-diet mice that had not received butein.

The study added to growing body of evidence that a diet high in saturated fats activated a cascade of inflammatory processes in the brain, which impaired leptin and insulin signaling, leading to obesity and type 2 diabetes.

"Our findings strongly support this idea and we also show that reversing this inflammation promotes a return towards normal metabolic functioning," he said.

The research suggested that butein and other natural compounds that blocked inflammation in the brain should be vigorously investigated as novel anti-diabetic treatments, he said.