Jiaogulan – A Promising New Herb for Diabetics

In this article I will only share with you the available scientific evidence directly related to diabetes (points 1-4 above).

If you want to examine the studies supporting points 5-8, I invite you to take a look at our complete Benefits page.

You can also join our mailing list and download our free e-book – Health, Balance and Wellbeing with the “Herb of Immortality”.

We will also be adding more anti-diabetic herbs that we are very excited about, and will be notifying our subscribers when we do.

So make sure you stay up-to-date not only on Jiaogulan, but other herbs that could make an important difference in your life.

I discovered Jiaogulan while living abroad in Thailand, not long after my father was diagnosed with pre-diabetes 2 years ago.

Like many people today, my dad wanted to avoid taking pharmaceutical drugs for as long as possible.

Despite his doctor’s recommendation to start on Metformin, my father wanted to try a natural approach first.

He knew that pharmaceutical drugs have many side-effects and can be potentially harmful.

In addition, they are expensive and are a one-way street – once you start taking them, it is usually for life.

I wholeheartedly agreed with him, so I set out to find out if there were any home or herbal remedies that the Thai locals were using to fight diabetes.

Thailand is a country where traditional and herbal medicine is widely practiced, and Thai people in general tend to use herbal remedies to treat a variety of diseases.

I started asking around and soon enough came across a herb called Jiaogulan, or Gynostemma pentaphyllum, which is still virtually unknown around the world (being discovered by science only around 40 years ago), yet it was very highly regarded by the locals.

They called it the “Herb of Immortality”, because of its many health benefits and a folk legend that people who drink it on a regular basis tend to live to very old age and in excellent health.

One of the herb’s numerous claimed benefits was that it can be used in the treatment of diabetes.

What I heard intrigued me and so I started to research this plant both on the Internet and in the scientific literature.

I was surprised to find that there has been a lot of scientific interest and research on Gynostemma since its modern-day discovery over 40 years ago.

This interest was due to the fact that Jiaogulan contains the largest variety of a class of plant chemicals known as saponins of any other plant in the world.

These saponins give many medicinal plants, like Ginseng for example, their therapeutic properties.

However, while Panax ginseng (one of the richest in saponins plants) contains around 28 different saponins, Jiaogulan is known today to contain at least 174 of them – over 6 times as many!!

After 3 months of research and examining over 300 published scientific studies on the plant’s medicinal properties, I realized that Jiaogulan could potentially be very beneficial to people suffering not only from diabetes, but a large number of other conditions and diseases.

It became obvious that it may well be one of the healthiest plants on the planet!

Here is what Dr. Jialiu Liu, the leading scientific researcher for the Chinese government, had to say about it:

Encouraged by my research, I was excited to find out whether Jiaogulan would have a positive effects on my father’s pre-diabetes.

Up to that point he had been trying to manage his blood sugar levels using only a cinnamon supplement, a healthy diet, and regular exercise.

During that time (around 1 year) his fasting plasma glucose (FPG) level had remained more or less stable around 7 mmol/L, with spikes whenever he wasn’t being careful enough about his diet.

So what happened once my dad started drinking Gynostemma tea daily?

After only 3 months of drinking Jiaogulan tea, his FPG level dropped all the way down to around 5.2 mmol/L – a perfectly healthy level.

And has remained in the normal range ever since, between 4.6 and 6.4 mmol/L – going up in the 6 mmol/L range when he eats too much food he’s not supposed to.

Not only that, but he has been feeling great overall, a lot more energetic and positive, yet calm at the same time.

The improvement has been so marked, in fact, that my entire family has started drinking Jiaogulan regularly, and loving it!

Nowadays my dad doesn’t even check his glucose level more than a couple of times per week, because it has remained in a stable and safe range.

For all intents and purposes his pre-diabetes is now under control (to the great surprise of his doctor), and my dad can be much less careful about what he eats.

There are two root causes for the onset of diabetes: insufficient production of the hormone insulin by the pancreas, and/or the inability of cells in the body to use insulin properly (insulin resistance).

Both lead to increased glucose levels in the blood.

Over time, elevated concentrations of blood glucose result in damage to nerves and blood vessels, leading to complications such as heart disease, stroke, blindness, kidney failure, and lower-limb amputations.

A number of human and animal studies show that Jiaogulan might be able to significantly lower blood sugar and glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA_1C) levels in a relatively short period of time, both as a standalone therapy and in combination with an anti-diabetic drug.

Evidence suggests that Jiaogulan may also be able to reduce the 30 and 120-minute post-load values of an oral glucose tolerance test.

The human studies concluded that Jiaogulan is mainly able to lower blood sugar by significantly improving the insulin sensitivity of the cells.

Although not yet confirmed by human studies, there is much evidence from animal studies to suggest that Gynostemma may also able to increase blood insulin levels and to stimulate the pancreas to produce more insulin.

In addition to potentially attacking the underlying causes of diabetes, studies have indicated that Jiaogulan may have strong protective effects on the cardiovascular system, the nervous system, the liver and kidneys from both diabetic and non-diabetic damage.

Finally, there have been NO instances of hypoglycemia ever recorded in any Jiaogulan study. The herb has an effect on blood sugar ONLY IF levels are too high.

So let’s take a look at the actual studies.

In a 12-week long study, patients with diabetes type 2 who had never previously taken anti-diabetic drugs were divided in 2 groups: a placebo and a Jiaogulan treatment group.

The study measured fasting plasma glucose (FPG) levels and glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA_1C).

The study showed that the FPG of patients on the Jiaogulan treatment decreased an average of 3 mmol/L compared to a decrease of only 0.6 mmol/L in the placebo group.

In addition, HbA_1C dropped by 2% in the Jiaogulan group compared to 0.2% in the placebo group.

Finally, the insulin resistance of the Jiaogulan group as measured by Homeostasis Model Assessment-Insulin Resistance (HOMA-IR) decreased by 2.1 points, while it increased by 1.1 point in the placebo group. ²

In a 12-week long randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial, type 2 diabetes patients were divided into two groups: one treated with the anti-diabetic drug Gliclazide (sulfonylurea) and Jiaogulan, and another with Gliclazide and green tea as a placebo.

During the first 4 weeks all patients were treated daily with a single dose of 30 mg Gliclazide only.

They saw an average decrease in fasting plasma glucose (FPG) levels from 11.4 mmol/L to 9.3 mmol/L, while their HbA_1C dropped 1% from 9.9% average to 8.9%. An increase in insulin levels was also observed.

For the remaining 8 weeks of the study, the two groups continued on the same dosage of Gliclazide, with the addition of Jiaogulan in one group and green tea in the other.

By the end of the study, the FPG of the Jiaogulan + Gliclazide group had decreased further by an average of 2.9 mmol/L compared to 0.9 mmol/L in the green tea + Gliclazide group.

In addition, HbA_1C in the Jiaogulan group dropped by an additional 2% compared to 0.7% in the green tea group.

Therapy with Jiaogulan also reduced the 30 and 120-minute oral glucose tolerance test postload values by 1.8 mmol/L and 3.6 mmol/L respectively, while in the green tea group these values INCREASED by 1.2 mmol/L and 1.3 mmol/L respectively. Other improvements were also observed, but were not statistically significant.

The researchers noted that using Gliclazide (sulfonylurea) with Jiaogulan gave similar results to a combiation therapy of Gliclazide and Metformin, but without any of the side-effects reported in those studies, which included diarrhea, nausea, epigastric discomfort, and anorexia.

It is also important to note, one again, that at the end of the study the difference in FPG levels between participants on Jiaogulan was MUCH smaller than those who were on placebo and Gliclazide. This indicates that Jiaogulan was equally effective for ALL patients.³

Animal studies indicate that Jiaogulan may reduce blood glucose levels and inhibit increases in blood glucose after a glucose challenge test^{4, 5, 6} due to the ability to improve glucose tolerance in the body.^{7, 8, 9, 10}

Studies also indicate that Jiaogulan may increase insulin concentrations in the blood by improving the liver’s capacity to metabolize glucose,^{4, 5, 8, 16} and may stimulate pancreatic beta-cells (islets) to secrete more insulin.^{4, 11, 12, 13, 17}

Increased insulin secretion was found to be proportionally stronger with increases in both blood glucose levels and Jiaogulan concentrations.¹⁶

There is also evidence that Jiaogulan may protect the heart and cardiovascular system of diabetic rats from diabetic damage, which is an important additional benefit.^{14, 15}

Moreover, there is evidence it may protect the liver, inhibit weight gain, and reduce blood fat levels in type 2 diabetic rats with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.¹⁷.