Ingredients to Crave for – Part 2

Hello Friends, welcome back to our blogs section of IndusViva, where we will be talking about health tips, giving information about various products that we offer and their positive effects on health.
In today’s episode, we will continue with our “Ingredients to Crave for” series.
So coming back to the topic of hero ingredients, we talked about a very small introductory note on Turmeric in our last episode of this series.
Let’s learn something new about Turmeric today…. So

Let’s see in what way this turmeric is going to help us in management of diabetes.

We all know that Curcumin is the ingredient responsible for the therapeutic benefits of Turmeric.

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is an ensemble of metabolic diseases that has reached pandemic dimensions all over the world. The multifactorial nature of the pathology makes patient management, which includes lifelong drug therapy and lifestyle modification, extremely challenging.

Currently, there is growing evidence on the efficacy of the use of medicinal plants supplements for T2DM prevention and management. Among these medicinal plants, curcumin is gaining a growing interest in the scientific community. Curcumin has different pharmacological and biological effects that have been described by both in-vitro and in-vivo studies, and include antioxidant, cardio-protective, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, nephro-protective, anti-neoplastic, hepato-protective, immunomodulatory, hypoglycaemic and anti-rheumatic effects. In animal models, curcumin extract delays diabetes development, improves β-cell functions, prevents β-cell death, and decreases insulin resistance.

Currently, the preferred therapies for T2DM treatment include the use of anti-diabetic drugs, lifestyle intervention (healthy nutrition and daily physical activity) and monitoring of arterial pressure and lipid profile. Effective prevention and treatment are needed to optimally manage diabetes patients.

Ways by which Turmeric helps in combating Diabetes

1. Managment of Blood sugar levels: Turmeric may help manage high glucose levels in your blood. The spice was shown to increase insulin sensitivity, which leads to lowering of blood sugar levels. Turmeric lowers blood sugar levels via several methods. One method is to stimulate the creation of insulin. Another method is to improve the activity and performance of pancreatic cells, called beta cells. This is accomplished by repairing and regenerating these beta cells. The spice also reduces glucose creation in the liver.

2. Promotion of Weight Loss and Reversal of diabetes: The health of type 2 diabetes patients greatly depends on lifestyle and diet changes. Adding turmeric to your diet may delay the onset or development of diabetes. One reason for this is because the curcumin component in turmeric helps to prevent fatty deposits in the blood vessels of your body. The substance also curtails the growth of fatty tissue in your organs. Adding turmeric to your diet can help you maintain a healthy weight and avoid the complications of diabetes.

3. Reduction of the effect of Diabetic complication: Common complications associated with diabetes include nerve damage, diabetic cataracts that may lead to blindness, kidney disease, liver disorders and even cognitive problems. Studies have shown that diabetic patients who took turmeric over a long period of time showed fewer symptoms of these complications, particularly liver disorders like fatty liver disease. Other diabetic complications that turmeric helps to improve are diabetic retinopathy, microangiopathy and diabetic gastroparesis.

4. Lowering of Insulin resistance and Helping with inflammation: When there is insulin resistance in your body, it causes the cells in your liver and muscles to not respond well to the insulin in your blood that absorbs excess glucose. This condition eventually causes abnormally high levels of blood glucose and may damage the pancreas which is where insulin is produced. Turmeric gives a helping hand to stimulate the absorption of glucose by the body. It also lowers insulin resistance by helping curtail inflammation in the body.

5. Treatment and prevention of Heart Disease: Endothelial dysfunction is a common heart problem among people with diabetes. The term ‘endothelial’ refers to the endothelium, which is the thin membrane lining that is located inside of the heart as well as blood vessels. Endothelial dysfunction can cause a host of cardiovascular problems and diseases. High glucose in the blood increases the risk for heart disease, because high blood sugar levels lead to the oxidization—or destruction—of lipids in cell membranes that damages cells and sometimes even the DNA in the nuclei of cells. The fatty deposits, along with scar tissue, that builds up in arteries can lead to atherosclerosis or even a heart attack. The condition is also linked with high blood pressure. Turmeric scavenges off the oxidizing agents that cause atheroma.

6. Support for the Health of Vital Organs: Turmeric protects from oxidative agents that cause damage to your liver’s functioning. Being diabetic increases your risk of building up non-alcoholic fatty deposits that cause fatty liver disease. Turmeric decreases the oxidative agents that cause these fatty deposits and also increases the levels of enzymes that act as anti-oxidants that help to neutralize toxic substances that are the by-products of metabolism. Turmeric also protects your kidneys. Impaired kidney function caused by diabetes is called diabetic nephropathy.

7. Improvement of Healing of tissues and immune response: Diabetic patients sometimes experience problems with slow healing of wounds. The slow healing tissue is a result from oxidative stress on different organs in your body. We now know that Turmeric help heal wounds faster. This is because turmeric has anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties. Turmeric may lower destructive immune responses of the body that cause damage to pancreatic cells. The spice may also work to boost the effectiveness of immunomodulatory medications.

So these were only a few of the best effects of Turmeric and there are many more to know about. And there are quite some under evaluation in different phases of research.

In our next episode, we will discuss about one more interesting ingredient that we use in our IndusViva product.

Till then take care.