Gymnema sylvestre and thought you might be interested in how they work or at
least what's known about how they work
A little bit today about Gymnema sylvestre it's a supplement it's used
for to combat diabetes it's actually been around for several hundred years
it's been used in Ayurvedic medicine the name comes from a hindi word called "the
sugar destroyer" it's a woody plant woody climber it's
found in West Africa, Sri Lanka, India the original part one that I did this is
part two part one look looked at what is it what's it used for and does it work
now they the science is not very good around around this is just like it isn't
great around a lot of supplements just not a lot of work done in the area if
you look at the science I'll show a couple of the articles they're just more
descriptive type of things one of the reasons I bring that up in terms of this
discussion is the discussion of active ingredient you'll see that there's a
simple listed active ingredient gurmarin or gurmar which is a 35 amino acid
polypeptide or you know protein amino acids in a row that's a protein poly
peptide peptide is the building block of proteins now you get that
description of a single active ingredient and then you get this
this doesn't look like a 35 amino acid polypeptide to me but that's
also listed as under the biochemical name of Gymnema sylvestre and gurmar
it's also used by the way for weight loss and laxatives or diuretics
this is a typical article it's a fairly lightweight article no randomized
clinical trials that I could find anywhere but a lot of just descriptive
type things what does it do it blocks the sweet and sugar receptors evidently
on the tongue, in the bloodstream, and intestinal sugar receptors it may it
appears to increase insulin secretion and may actually increase Islet cell
growth again fairly and a lot of claims there but not a whole lot of science to
support it with anything any supplement you need to look at both
sides look at the safety here the safety record like most supplements is pretty
pretty clean some of the things that you see warnings about our hypoglycemia
again I don't think it's strong enough to be a major danger in that area but if
you're piling on a lot of different type of glycemic and medications then yeah
you could consider some risk there the laxatives and diuretics the reasons that
you gave it in the first place pregnancy is you know there's lists of
almost everything you get very concerned about pregnancy liver toxicity again
just a couple of mentions but not a lot of clear information so why am I
covering HMG-CoA reductase that gets into this next study HMG-CoA reductase
is the action point for statins they are also called HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors
why am i mentioning that right now is that a total out of the blue comment the
reality is no it's not you'll see in this in this article that I'm going to
cover for this video phytochemical and pharmacological
properties of Gymnema sylvestre an important medicinal plant it actually
has an impact in this area metabolic pathway as I covered before this this is
just some follow up now let me go back and make a comment about
the molecular structure one of the statements made by that article is how
does it do the how does it block immuno how does it blocks sugar receptors in
the tongue blood and gut because molecularly
it looks like sugar here's what sugar's look like molecularly
glucose fructose and sucrose and I guess you could say they look like that at
least glucose is a six carbon well five carbons in an oxygen it's a six atom
ring most of these are six atom rings I don't
see any five atom rings on here like you do with the
with fructose and part of sucrose so hmm and sucrose by the way is what a glucose
and fructose bound together so but maybe you know maybe your tongue and maybe the
receptors think that that looks alike as I mentioned we'll get into why I brought
up the HMG-CoA business also we'll get into cytochrome p450 interactions if you
don't recognize or remember that cytochrome p450 is a metabolic pathway
it's fairly nonspecific there's several different cytochrome switch metabolize
and are involved in in several metabolic pathways what you can get is take one
drug that stimulates the cytochrome p450 activities then take another drug that
is metabolized by cytochrome p450 it can in the two drugs can impact the dosages
of each other for example phenytoin (a seizure medicine) is an inducer of
cytochrome p450 if you give donepezil or mmm simvastatin or atorvastatin these
are all drugs that are impacted by cytochrome p450 and other cytochromes
and can be can therefore impact the dosages of each other so why am i
bringing that up again just be patient we're gonna get there and it's in this
article phytochemical and pharmacological
properties of Gymnema sylvestre now it says an important medicinal plant I
think these guys are big fans of the plant I've used it a few times I know
that there's a lot of folks that are into supplements that are using it as
well I'm not gonna re-read through the abstract other than this last sentence
"The review explores the transition of a traditional therapeutic to a modern
contemporary medication with an overview of phytochemistry and pharmacological
activities and its fight against constituents" you hear fight over there a
couple of times fight oh again just me plant so phytochemistry means "plant
chemistry" phyto constituents of plant components of it these guys go on to
mention that they're about 45,000 plant species in India with about 10% of them
being used in endocrine activities like diabetes it goes on to discuss other
hypoglycemic drugs such as sulphonylureas and biguanides it's biguanides
metformin is a biguanide and then it goes on to say that they're adverse side
effects sulphonylureas do actually have some very significant adverse side
effects metformin does not appear to have the as significant side effects
as we used to think at least in terms of lactic acidosis that's been reviewed a
couple of times but during Cochrane reviews and they
really found that doesn't unlike the other biguanide that
do so again as you continue to go through this article it does get better
in terms of the biochemistry but it's they paint with a fairly large brush in
terms of their their assumptions I'm not going to go into the traditional
perspective the taxonomy the phytochemical perspectives I will
however show you some of the "phytoconstituents" as you see the
the Gymnema appear to be an entire class of drugs or not drugs but
chemicals which are found in this plant gymnemic acids acylated gymnema-
saponins saponins alone so again
without getting too deep and taking too much time just making the point that
there's a lot of different chemicals in this phyto soup and it's again not quite
so clear exactly which ones do what as they mention on later well just one
other point those are the chemicals that that the earlier comments were molecularly
they fit into sugar receptors and actually blocked them so yes they've
been researched been studied showing that you swish and swallow Gymnema components
and you can't and then try to taste things later and you can't taste sugar
or sweetness as well now this gets back into you remember I asked the question a
few minutes ago oh why would I talk about statins well
this is how Gymnema components are made it starts on the mevalonic acid
pathway in the cytoplasm which starts with this acetyl CoA the third
component in that pathway that's a well known pathway by the way
the third component the third enzyme is HMG-CoA reductase now what is that used
for well you can go on to make statins our (excuse me)
LDL out of HMG-CoA and reduction HMG-CoA reductase is how statins impacted they
inhibit that activity as I showed you a few minutes ago that's part of the the
pathway now if you go continue to go down this pathway again you get to the
Gymnema remember I also mentioned cytochrome p450 cytochrome p450 is part
of the very last couple of steps before you get creation the Gymnema mode
activities the gymnemic acids and the other gymnema components so what does
all of this mean I don't think it's earth-shaking it does help those guys a
lot of folks that are interested in supplements don't know how they work and
haven't really taken the time to look at the research around them I know there
again there are several folks who are interested in Gymnema sylvestre and
thought you might be interested in how they work or at least what's known about
how they work if you've made it this far thank you very much for your interest
and if you could comment and tell me tell me what you think about Gymnema
what do you use it does knowing a little bit more about it impact you in any way
does it make you want to use it make you want to try it make you want to stop it
thanks CIMT Access Event is happening in LA, Anaheim, September 28th with David
Meinz for the full afternoon plus a full CIMT plus the reading on it two hundred
and forty five dollars thanks