Stevia

 

 

Many diabetics have been waiting for a sweetener extracted from the rainforest plant Stevia to be made available in the shops. This is because a good many people prefer to use sweeteners recovered from the super-sweet plant than the synthetic alternatives that have been on the market for many years now.

Sweeteners are not medicines.

Associate professor and Stevia expert Per Bendix Jeppesen from Aarhus University Hospital is working to develop a medicine based on the plant, which is up to 450 times sweeter than sugar but contains no calories and produces no rise in blood sugar. But any medicine based on the Stevia plant that may become a reality in future should not be confused with the Stevia as a sweetener already on the market.

 

“A great many of those we talk to mix up Stevia the sweetener with Stevia the plant as a possible medicinal product. There is widespread misunderstanding about Stevia as a sweetener having a preventive effect on type 2 diabetes, which is not the case,” says Lisa Heidi Witt, a clinical dietician with the Diabetes Association.

 

Two substances in the same plant

The substance currently being studied for its anti-diabetic effect for use in a possible medicinal product is not the same substance as used in refined form as a sweetener, though both substances come from the same plant, Stevia.

 

 

Head of Research, Knowledge and Courses at the Diabetes Association, Malene Bagger, states:

“It’s important that the substance effective against type 2 diabetes is studied in detail so as to clarify the effects it has. A good deal of research has already been done on the Stevia plant, and although some of the results are promising, it may well take a number of years before we see the possible advent of a medicinal product based on the Stevia plant.”

 

 

 

Source: Danish Diabetes Association