{"id":604271,"date":"2026-04-24T20:19:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T20:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/604271\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T20:19:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T20:19:17","slug":"popular-spice-shows-promise-as-diabetes-treatment-new-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/604271\/","title":{"rendered":"Popular spice shows promise as diabetes treatment: new study"},"content":{"rendered":"

Could this be the golden ticket for diabetes patients?<\/p>\n

Over 40.1 million Americans<\/a> \u2014 roughly 12% of the US population \u2014 have diabetes, a chronic condition characterized by consistently elevated blood sugar.<\/p>\n

Type 1 diabetes, often diagnosed in childhood, is an autoimmune disease where the pancreas doesn\u2019t produce enough insulin to use sugar for energy. Type 2 diabetes, which is more common in adults, is strongly tied to insulin resistance and obesity.<\/p>\n

Now, researchers from the Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) have identified a popular spice that could help stave off heart damage caused by diabetes.<\/p>\n

\"AMore than 40.1 million Americans have diabetes. Their blood sugar levels are persistently high. (JLco) Julia Amaral \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

Curcumin<\/a> gives turmeric<\/a>, a staple in Indian and South Asian cuisine, its golden color. It also boasts powerful anti-inflammatory effects.<\/p>\n

\u201cCurcumin acts as more than a simple compound found in a spice or an antioxidant,\u201d Swasti Rastogi, the study\u2019s first author and a PhD candidate at FIT, said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt not only helps to improve blood sugar levels,\u201d she added, \u201cbut also reduces inflammation, restores cellular responses and preserves both structure and function of the aorta in Type 1 diabetes.\u201d<\/p>\n

For this study, Rastogi\u2019s team used a rat model for Type 1 diabetes to compare the critters exposed to curcumin to those that didn\u2019t get a taste of the golden goodness.<\/p>\n

The diabetic rats that underwent the treatment had better vascular function \u2014 resembling that of nondiabetic rats \u2014 after just a month.<\/p>\n

\"FreshCurcumin gives turmeric, a staple in Indian and South Asian cuisine, its golden color. Sea Wave \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

Curcumin reduced the rats\u2019 inflammation, balanced the flow of calcium ions in their blood vessels and increased a protein that\u2019s significantly affected by diabetes.<\/p>\n

The results will be presented in the coming days at the\u00a0American Physiology Summit<\/a>\u00a0in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n

Despite the promise shown in this research, curcumin has a long way to go before it\u2019s used as a diabetes treatment.<\/p>\n

First, this study only evaluated its potential in rats with simulated Type 1 diabetes.<\/p>\n

Also, curcumin is typically poorly absorbed in the human gut and quickly eliminated by the body.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s often combined with something else, like black pepper, to increase its bioavailability.<\/p>\n

The researchers noted that more studies are needed to pinpoint the most effective curcumin dosage that won\u2019t interfere with medications.<\/p>\n

This is not curcumin\u2019s first time in the sun. It\u2019s widely used to manage osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis<\/a> by reducing joint pain and inflammation.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also being investigated for chronic illnesses fueled by inflammation and metabolic dysfunction, like inflammatory bowel disease, certain cancers and neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer\u2019s and Parkinson\u2019s diseases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Could this be the golden ticket for diabetes patients? Over 40.1 million Americans \u2014 roughly 12% of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[40302,985,3286,97,8982,1492,269,73839,3284,582],"class_list":["post-604271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-antioxidants","tag-diabetes","tag-food-drink","tag-health","tag-heart","tag-heart-disease","tag-nutrition","tag-rats","tag-study-says","tag-supplements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}