Plant Insulin Duva Karunakaran Queen Mary Floor Location: J12H

Insulin is a protein hormone that is responsible for the lowering of blood sugar. Without this hormone, one’s blood sugar will increase and be diagnosed to have diabetes. Untreated, diabetes can lead to serious complications and premature death. People who have diabetes take medications that stimulate insulin production or inject artificial insulin to control their blood sugar level. Being inconvenient for many, it pushes ones mind to question, “Are there any natural ways of reducing blood sugar?” It’s known that in some Asian cultures a vegetable called bitter melon is taken by diabetics to reduce their blood sugar levels. In order to test whether bitter melon reduces blood sugar levels and by how much, a study has been conducted on volunteers. The results show that bitter melon has insulin like effects to lower blood glucose levels. To further investigate, bitter melon was tested and found to contain protein.