A substance in Black Tea has been found to mimic type 2 diabetes drugs Precose and Glyset. This interesting information comes from today’s WebMD Health News, and is based on a report by Haixia Chen and colleagues of Tianjin University, China. Their findings, published in the current issue of the Journal of Food Science, state that a substance in Black Tea Mimics Diabetes Drugs.
Black tea contains more of this diabtetes drug-mimicking substance, a polysaccharide compound, than either green or oolong teas. Chen and colleagues show that tea polysaccharides inhibit an enzyme called alpha-glucosidase, which turns starch into glucose. The diabetes drugs Precose and Glyset work similarly, by inhibiting this enzyme.
Very black tea has been used as a diabetes treatment in China and Japan. It’s known that tea polysaccharides reduce blood sugar. “Many efforts have been made to search for effective glucose inhibitors from natural materials,” Chen says in a news release. “There is a potential for exploitation of black tea polysaccharide in managing diabetes.”
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