Herbs and Herbal Remedies for Type II Diabetes

Cinnamon is a familiar spice and flavoring which has shown considerable evidence of having the remarkable ability to lower blood sugar. It is no coincidence that cinnamon is often added to sweets and foods high in refined carbs, ranging from the ubiquitous cinnamon swirl bun, to Pho, a Vietnamese beef noodle soup with rice noodles (a high glycemic-index food) and flavored with cinnamon, among other spices.

If you have or are at risk for type II diabetes, or if you want to moderate your blood sugar levels for other reasons, such as avoiding the instabilities in mood associated with a sugar crash, it cannot hurt to include cinnamon as a flavoring in your meals.

You can also add cinnamon sticks to herbal teas, or cinnamon powder. Make sure to use pure cinnamon and not cinnamon sugar, as the last thing you want is to add more sugar to your diet. Cinnamon as a spice is naturally slightly sweet, even though it contains no sugar!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons by Sam Mugraby, Photos8.com. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.

Chamomile tea, a popular bedtime drink in western countries, has shown some evidence of being able to lower blood sugar and thus prevent the progression of type II diabetes and prevent some of the damage associated with high blood sugar levels. Drinking this tea with or shortly after meals might help keep your blood sugar levels under control.

In addition to its diabetes-fighting properties, chamomile tea has a number of other positive effects on health, including antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory effects. However, chamomile is also known to act as an anticoagulant (blood thinner), and can interact with prescription blood thinners, so it should be used with caution by anyone on these medications or anyone for which anticoagulants are contraindicated.

Chamomile is a popular ingredient in herbal teas. It's easy to find pure chamomile as well as herbal blends containing chamomile in any supermarket. You can also find listings and reviews of chamomile tea on RateTea's page about chamomile tea and the separate page on chamomile blends, which are for herbal teas containing primarily chamomile, but also containing other herbs or ingredients.

Tulsi, also known as holy basil, is a species of basil that is in many ways a distant cousin of the familiar sweet basil plant used in western cooking. Tulsi has powerful medicinal properties, and is widely used in Ayurveda, the traditional medicine of India. In Ayurveda, tulsi is used to treat type II diabetes, as well as a number of other conditions. It is considered by modern herbalists to be an adaptogen, meaning an herb that has a normalizing effect on the body.

Tulsi has not been as thoroughly studied in the west as many herbs, but it shows promising preliminary evidence supporting many of its uses in Ayurvedic medicine, including its ability to treat type II diabetes. Tulsi seems to be able to lower blood sugar, much like chamomile. Also of interest, tulsi shows strong evidence of being able to reduce stress and anxiety, and protect the body against damage caused by stress. As stress is one of the major factors that can aggravate type II diabetes, this herb is of special interest to diabetics. Like chamomile, however, tulsi also acts as an anticoagulant or blood thinner.

RateTea.net also has an extensive page about tulsi / holy basil, which has detailed information about the health and medicinal properties of this herb, citations to scientific studies on this herb's effectiveness, and ratings, reviews, and different sources of buying this herb.

Photo from kamath_ln on Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License.