Lowered Blood Sugar Levels in Diabetic Adults were Found by Researchers in Subjects that took Natural Herbs.

For centuries, olive tree leaves (Olea europaea L.) have been widely used in European and Mediterranean countries to treat diabetes and lower blood sugar naturally.  Olive leaves have been taken as extracts, herbal teas, and powders and believed to have significant blood-sugar balancing activity.  In recent years, several studies have shown that olive tree leaves possess a wide range of pharmacologic and health-promoting properties.  Many of these studies have specifically associated olive leaf with naturally lowering blood sugar levels in diabetics.

A study published in 2012 (Olive Leaf Extract as a Hypoglycemic Agent in Both Human Diabetic Subjects and in Rats, Wainstein J, et al. J Med Food. 15 (7) 2012, 1–6 February 21, 2012) showed that treatment with olive leaf extract from olive leaf, dried and powdered and taken daily, improved glucose metabolism and significantly reduced HbA1C values.  The HbA1c test (hemoglobin A1c test) is an important blood test that shows how well a person’s diabetes is being controlled by showing the average level of blood sugar in the person’s blood over the previous 3 months.  If blood glucose levels have been high, the hemoglobin A1c test will be higher.

This controlled clinical trial included 79 adults that had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes at least 1 year before the study and were 18–79 years of age.   The subjects were given 500 mg of olive leaf powder extracted from dried olive leaves orally once a day or a matching placebo for 14 weeks.  All subjects maintained their usual diabetes therapy, which consisted of the oral hypoglycemic agents sulfonylurea and/ or metformin. No patient was treated with insulin.

The researchers found that the patients that took the olive leaf for 14 weeks had significantly lower HbA1c levels than those treated with the placebo.   Compared with the placebo, the olive leaf treatment was also associated with a significant decrease in fasting insulin levels.  Fasting and postprandial insulin and glucose levels did not significantly differ between the groups.

The researchers concluded that, the results of the study suggest that treatment with olive leaf extract is associated with a beneficial hypoglycemic effect in patients with diabetes stating that “Olive leaf extract is associated with improved glucose homeostasis in humans” and that “Olive leaf extract may represent an effective adjunct therapy that normalizes glucose homeostasis in individuals with diabetes.”

“Indeed, olive tree leaves have been long recognized as a traditional anti-diabetic and antihypertensive herbal intervention and have been used to treat these conditions as well as infectious diseases in Europe.” Olive leaf has been used as a traditional medicine for diabetes and blood sugar issues in the Mediterranean and Middle East for centuries.  Despite incredible feats of modern medicine, traditional herbal medicine has always continued to be practiced and this study confirms the positive results obtained by many modern herbalists using olive leaf to treat patients suffering from diabetes and high blood sugar.

You can read the entire published study here: Lowered Blood Sugar Levels in Diabetic Adults

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