Kochi: Fighting diabetes the bitter way? It could turn sweeter if the pioneering research done at Kochi-based SCMS Centre of Biotechnology is taken to the logical level.
The study, which was published in medical journal Phytomedicine, has come out with evidence for the diabetes-fighting qualities of the derivatives of Stevia rebaudiana, a sweet-tasting medicinal shrub available across India.
The study, funded by the Department of Science and Technology, has given scientific base to the use of the shrub as an anti-hyperglycemic agent for the treatment of diabetes for decades.
SCMS researchers Dr C Mohan Kumar, Dr Salini Bhasker and Dr Harish Madhav found that that purified form of steviol, stevioside (a natural sweetener and a diterpene glycoside extracted from Stevia) and the crude stevia extract can help activate GLUT 4 molecules for the absorption of glucose from the surrounding cell environment, similar to the activity performed by insulin.
GLUT4 or glucose transporter type 4 is the insulin-regulated glucose transporter found primarily in skeletal and adipose tissues.
The study also revealed the differential effect of steviol and stevioside in diabetes-induced myotubes and adipocytes with respect to their concentration.
Dr Mohan Kumar, who is also the director of SCMS centre for biotechnology, said steviol is not a protein but has the characteristic of insulin.
“Hence a drug made of this can be orally consumed, unlike insulin which needs to be injected into the blood.”
Anti-diabetic property of the di terpene glycoside of Steviarebaudiana has been established for decades. Several reports have provided sufficient evidence showing antihyper glycemic response of the stevioside.
However, the clinical acceptance of stevioside as a drug for controlling diabetes required more data revealing the mode of action of stevioside in the activation of GLUT4gene and sub-sequent changes in promoting glucose uptake.
The study has generated molecular data on the quantification of the marker gene expression and its effect in glucose uptake in the presence of steiol and stevioside.
The study measured the efficacy of GLUT4 under the effect of steviol and stevioside at transcript level by qPCR, at protein level by ELISA protein and the uptake of radiolabeled glucose in presence of these drugs.
