Plant discovery offers new hope for diabetics

Goldilocks’ flowering shrub offers new hope for diabetics as it improves insulin secretion and glucose absorption, says researcher.

The plant called Chiliadenus iphionoides (more commonly, “sharp varthemia” or “Goldilocks”) could improve insulin secretion and glucose absorption in people with diabetes, according to plant biologist Jonathan Gorelick, scientific director of the Judea Regional Research and Development Center in Israel.

This plant which is mostly found in Jordan, Sinai and Israel has been used traditionally by Bedouins for controlling diabetes, Gorelick says.

Gorelick and his team describe how they tested the effects of the plant on a particular Negev rodent with a nutritionally induced model of diabetes. When the animals were given an oral glucose tolerance test, blood-glucose levels returned immediately to normal levels only in the ones that had been fed sharp varthemia before the test.

“We also did a longer-term study in which we mixed the plant with their food and showed the [positive] effects,” says Gorelick. Consumption of the yellow-flowering plant increased sugar absorption in the rodents’ muscle and fat cells, and reduced blood-sugar levels.

Gorelick and his research collaborators have identified one of the active compounds responsible for these effects, and continue to search for others. At the same time, they are experimenting to find the best way to grow the plant agriculturally with its active compounds intact so that it could be cultivated as a commercially available natural treatment for diabetes.

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