Reply #26: That's not the type of thinking that's going to lead to increased health

[HysteryDiagnosis]

and safety.<<

Please don't lecture me on the safety of pharmaceutical drugs, they are pulled DAILY... most often for organ failure, stroke or death.

http://www.mdtext.com/diabetes/diabetes13/diabetesframe13.htm

BOTANICAL EXTRACTS

Botanicals have been used for medicinal purposes since the dawn of civilization (41). It is well documented (12) that many pharmaceuticals commonly used today are structurally derived from natural compounds found in traditional medicinal plants. The development of the anti-hyperglycemic drug metformin (dimethlybiguanide; Glucophage®) can be traced to the traditional use of Galega officinalis to treat diabetes, and the subsequent search to identify active compounds with reduced toxicity (42-44). G. officinalis is far from the only botanical to have been used as a treatment for diabetes. Chinese medical books written as early as 3000 B.C. spoke of diabetes and described therapies for this disease (45;46). These historical accounts reveal that T2D existed long ago, and medicinal plants have been used for many millennia to treat this disease. To date, the anti-diabetic activities of well over 1200 traditional plants has been reported, although scant few have been subjected to rigorous scientific evaluation for safety and efficacy in humans (45;47-50). This section will provide a brief overview of those botanicals used for diabetes that have received the most scientific attention, and appear worthy to this author of a comprehensive evaluation.