NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Chinese medical experts have used root from ginseng plants for millennia to treat a variety of ills, including diabetes. Now, a new study shows that extracts of the berry from the ginseng plant can help reduce the effects of diabetes and take off pounds in diabetic, obese mice even better than the root, pointing towards potential new treatments for these conditions.

Ginseng berry extract is not sold in health food stores, lead author Dr. Chun-Su Yuan of the University of Chicago, Illinois told Reuters Health, and further studies in humans are needed before doctors can recommend berry extract for diabetics, if and when it becomes commercially available.

"We feel it would work, but we need more data to prove that," he said.

Yuan and his colleagues tested injections of extract of berries from Panax ginseng, or Asian ginseng, in mice with a genetic defect that induces weight gain and diabetes. All mice had the type 2 (or adult-onset) form of the condition, which represents more than 90% of diabetics. This form of diabetes occurs when the body develops a resistance to insulin--the hormone that regulates the level of sugar in the blood.

During the study, mice received daily injections of 150 milligrams per kilogram of body weight of the herbal treatment.

After the 12th day of injections, Yuan and his team discovered that blood-sugar levels had completely normalized in diabetic mice. The mice had also reduced their body weight by more than 10%, and showed cholesterol levels that were 30% lower than those of untreated mice, the authors write in the June issue of Diabetes.

In an interview with Reuters Health, Yuan explained that the ginseng berry extract likely reduced body weight by suppressing appetite and increasing the expenditure of energy in the mice. Indeed, he and his colleagues note that treated mice ate 15% less than untreated mice, and were 35% more active. "Doing both is very good," Yuan said.

Yuan said he was particularly pleased to see that the berry extract helped treat diabetes better than ginseng root, which some diabetic patients currently take to treat their conditions.

"Yes, the root works, but the berry is much better," he noted.

Ginsenosides are the purported active substances in ginseng, and the amount contained in ginseng berries is different from the root content. Specifically, the berry contains much higher concentrations of a particular ginsenoside, Re.

Consequently, Yuan and his team tested ginsenoside Re alone in mice to see if it worked as well as the whole berry, and found that the compound achieved the same improvement in symptoms of diabetes, but was unable to reduce weight in the obese mice.

Yuan said he suspects it is the ginsenoside Re in ginseng berries that helps with diabetes, but another berry compound that treats the obesity.

Yuan said he has applied for a patent for ginsenoside Re, which, at press time, had not yet been approved.

SOURCE: Diabetes 2002;51.

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