Salacia Reticulata Normalizes Insulin Levels and Helps You Lose Weight!

If you crave carbs, chances are you're either overweight or you don't eat enough protein.
This is actually a physiological craving caused by the way your body chemistry overreacts to
eating sweets and carbohydrates.
And if excess glucose remains in circulation, high insulin levels will stimulate lipogenesis (fat
production and storage). To compound the problem, there is evidence that high insulin
levels trigger the hypothalamus (the master gland) to send out hunger signals.
Insulin regulates carbohydrate metabolism by controlling blood sugar (glucose) levels.
During a meal, the insulin level is a determining factor in signaling the brain that your body
is "full." Stress and poor eating habits are also factors but the most detrimental one is the
"over consumption of carbohydrates", leading to insulin imbalance. Once the imbalance
becomes constant, low insulin levels will elevate glucose and cause you to eat more, and
consequently gain weight. It becomes a vicious cycle, because overweight people burn sugar
less efficiently than those with normal weight do.
And ultimately, the more carbs you eat the hungrier you may become.2 Even if you eat as
few as 800 calories a day, if you are sugar sensitive and those calories are from
carbohydrates, you may find that you still gain weight.
The Role Insulin Plays in Your Body
Every time you eat a carbohydrate, such as a piece of bread, plate of pasta, a baked potato,
or even a piece of fruit (which is 50% fructose), your digestive system converts it into
glucose, a simple sugar, which is then absorbed into the blood stream. In response to the
rise in blood sugar, insulin is produced and secreted into the bloodstream by the pancreas-a
glandular organ deep in your abdominal cavity, behind the stomach.

As insulin travels through the circulatory system, it regulates the metabolism, storage and
level of blood sugar. This master hormone of metabolism converts some glucose into
glycogen, a sugar-polymer (long chain of sugar molecules) that is stored in the liver and
muscle tissues. Glycogen acts as storage fuel like a spare gallon of gasoline for your car, and
can be converted back into glucose quickly and easily on an as-needed basis. The remaining
glucose circulates in the bloodstream to be used for energy. But if too much glycogen gets
stored, it accumulates as body fat and organ fat, resulting in obesity.

When the pancreas secretes the right amount of insulin, it regulates appetite, growth
hormone, cholesterol, and fluid levels. Consequently, your metabolic system keeps
everything in balance. But if the pancreas secretes an excess of insulin in order to deal with

all the extra glucose from eating too many carbohydrates, the body will become
overwhelmed by the amount of insulin, sluggish in response to it-and develop insulin
resistance. Unfortunately, this often results in:

Excessive abdominal fat

Elevated blood pressure (130/85 or higher)
The production of more LDL (bad cholesterol) by the liver due to insulin stimulation
Low HDL (good cholesterol)
Elevated triglyceride levels
Maintaining healthy blood lipid and insulin levels
The good news is Salacia reticulata, a plant that grows in India and Sri Lanka, helps
normalize blood sugar and insulin levels, and support healthy blood lipids.
Traditionally used in Ayurvedic medicine to treat diabetes, more recently it has been
used as a supplementary food in Japan to prevent diabetes and obesity.
Salacia also has potent antioxidant properties, and triglyceride and LDL cholesterollowering effects that aid in weight loss. It contains mangiferin, a polyphenol, which
enhances the body's sensitivity to insulin, and contains inhibitors of sugar digestion
and absorption.6 A study at the Kyoto Pharmaceutical University, Japan,
investigating the antiobesity effects of Salacia on laboratory animals found that its
polyphenols inhibit fat metabolizing enzymes and enhance lipolysis (the breakdown
of fat stored in fat cells). Suppresses glucose absorption, Alpha-glucosidase inhibitors
decrease the absorption of carbohydrates from the intestine, resulting in a slower
and lower rise in blood glucose throughout the day, especially right after meals. They
are important constituents of the traditionally used anti-diabetic medicines, and are
also therapeutic for other carbohydrate-metabolic disorders, such as Syndrome X.
Salacia contains two potent alpha-glucosidase inhibitors: salicinol and kotalanol.8 In
a recent study, Salacia extract exerted an inhibitory effect on the increase of serum
glucose levels in rats that had been give high doses of sucrose (table sugar) and
maltose (a sugar molecule consisting of two linked glucose molecules). In fact, the
scientists concluded that Salacia is a more potent glucose inhibitor than acarbose, a
commercial alpha-glucosidase inhibitor found in diabetic medication.9
A study published in April 2004 by the Department of Food Science and Nutrition,
School of Human Environmental Sciences, Mukogawa Women's University,
Nishinomiya, Japan, discusses the effects that various teas had on slowing down the
digestion and absorption of sugar in laboratory animals. Out of the ten teas tested

(including mulberry and guava), Salacia's inhibitory effect lasted 110 minutes, which
was significantly longer than any of the other teas'.
Salacia has also been found to inhibit aldose reductase, an enzyme that is normally
present in the eye and in other parts of the body that helps change glucose into a
sugar alcohol called sorbitol. Too much sorbitol trapped in eye and nerve cells can
damage these cells, leading to neuropathy (nerve disease, which is related to chronic
diabetic complications such as peripheral neuropathy, retinopathy, and cataracts).
Salacia is a potent antioxidant
The polyphenols in salacia were shown to be potent free radical scavengers in a
study in which laboratory animals had stress-induced liver injuries. The scientists
concluded that the antioxidative activity of the compounds exerted a protective
effect on the animals' livers, indicating Salacia is a potential antioxidant for human
use against toxins that cause damage to the liver.
How safe is it?
Prescribed diabetes treatments such as insulin may produce side effects or low
blood sugar, but there are no known negative side effects associated with Salacia. It
does produce the positive effects of lowering triglyceride and LDL cholesterol, which
aids in weight loss!