Green Tea and Diabetes

Green tea and diabetes connection? Can green tea really help regulate your blood sugar level?

Insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas, is made in response to the level of glucose (sugar) in the bloodstream. Insulin serves two purposes: it lowers blood sugar levels and increases the availability of sugar for normal cell functioning.

Normally, after a meal, complex carbohydrates are digested and absorbed from the intestine into the bloodstream in the form of glucose and othe simple sugars.

This resulting rise in blood sugar causes the pancreas to secrete insulin, which encourages the transportation of sugar from the blood into the cells. As blood sugar levels fall, blood insulin levels return to the pre-meal state.

Things happen differently for diabetes.

Either the pancreas secretes little or no insulin in response to the rise in blood sugar after a meal or the pancreas secretes a normal amount of insulin but the cells do not respond to the hormone.

In either case, the result is that blood sugar levels remain high; sugar spills into the urine, and many complications can develop in the body from the abnormal blood sugar levels.

Long-term damage can be severe, including such devastating effects as gangrene (especially the feet), ulcers, kidney failure, and blindness.

Diabetes is also a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke because it makes the blood vessels less elastic and more likely to become clogged with plaque.

Read about green tea and diabetes studies below.

Green Tea and Diabetes Study

By going right to the source of the problem which is the formation of blood glucose, you can learn how to regulate your sugar level.

Glucose is one of the building blocks of complex carbohydrates (known as starches) found in foods. The starch molecule is like a string of pearls, with each pearl representing a molecule of glucose.

Your body can't absorb the starch molecule as a whole -- it has to be broken apart. A special enzyme called amylase does just that, acting like a pair of scissors to cut each pearl loose from the string.

These single pearls are then able to be absorbed into the bloodstream.

More green tea and diabetes studies below...

One study found that feeding green tea to rats reduced both blood glucose and insulin levels, and that catechins were very effective starch and sucrose blockers in the digestive tracts of rats.

Similar results were observed in humans.

When 300 mg (about 3 cups) of green tea were given to subjects ten minutes before taking in 50 grams of starch, their glucose and insulin levels did not rise nearly as much as was expected.