Asparagus Extract Tops Anti-Diabetes Drug Glibenclamide. Plus: Dozens of Add. Health Benefits - From Aphrodisiac to Anti-Hangover & from Neuroprotection to Anti-Aging

Coho salmon, shrimp and asparagus with melted butter - better than any diabetes drug ;-)

Within the last couple of weeks, I have been moving news-items like this one into the "On Short Notice"  category, or simply totally discarded the dozen or so "herb XYZ" or "extract ABC ameliorates hypoglycemia in rodent model of type II diabetes" papers that are published on a weekly basis. The mere number of studies on whatever exotic, herb, spice or isolated polyphenol from the most remote areas (usually in Asia) the names of which I often even have heard about before, is simply too large to cover them all... and let's be honest: In the end, it's also downright boring to read about stuff that decreases blood glucose in a rodent model to a miniscule extend, when you already know that chances that you ever get your hands on a significant amount of that are zero, right?

There are however, two good reasons, why Rahman Md. Hafizur, Nurul Kabir and Sidra Chishti most recent paper, which has been published on November 24 in the latest issue of the British Journal of Nutrition, has still made it not just into the short, but actually the 'official' SuppVersity news are twofold: Firstly, the effects of the Asparagus officinalis extract they administered at two different dosages to their rodents were just mediocre, but - as you are about to see - right on par with the diabetes drug glibenclamide, a sulfonylurea based medication that is often sold in combination with metformin (the respective drugs are called Glucovance and Glibomet). And secondly, briefly summarizing the main results of the study provided a nice incentive to dig somewhat deeper into the already established beneficial health effects of asparagus - and I can tell you, those are about as numerous as the aformentioned boring "herb XYZ"-studies ;-)

From the scientists' petri dishes to the rodent cage and... onto your dishes?

Asparagus officinalis L. is probably what the average Westerner would call "common asparagus". It's native to most European, African and Asian countries and its medicinal usage has been reported in the British and Indian Pharmacopoeias and in traditional systems of medicine such as Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha. Most of you will probably be aware of its mild diuretic effects and the distinct smell of your urine which will betray that you are someone who loves its delicate flavor in salads, vegetable dishes, soups and (if you are like me) poundwise with melted Kerrygold butter, some potatoes a decent amount of ham or some grilled meat during the asparagus season... but I am digressing here, let's get back to the facts.

To get to the bottom of previously reported beneficial effects of asparagus in various inflammatory (metabolic) diseases, the initially conducted an in-vitro study, to test the radical scavenging ability of their Asparagus extract and found that ...

"[...] A. officinalis at a concentration of 0·5 mg/ml exhibited 86·8 % radical-scavenging activity, as shown by a significant decrease in the absorbance of DPPH radicals. These results suggest that A. officinalis has potent antioxidant activity, as the positive control propyl gallate exhibited 91·4 % radical-scavenging activity. (Hafizur. 2012)

Afterwards they injected a group of male and female Wistar rats with streptozotocin to induce diabetes. Subsequently, the rodents received either 250 or 500mg/kg body weight of an Asparagus officinalis (AO) extract or 5mg/kg body weight of glibenclamide (GIB) once daily via an oral syringe - the dosage was adapted once weekly according to changes in body weight.

Figure 1: Fasting blood glucose and insulin levels, total antioxidant status (TAS was measured using the ABTS) and beta cell area / islet expressed relative to control at the end of the 29 day study period (based on Hafizur. 2012)

A cursory glance at the data in figure 1 reveals: The initially betrayed anti-hypoglycemic effects (hypo[...] = ability to lower [blood sugar]) the high dose of Asparagus officinalis extract (AO500, figure 1) had on the fasting glucose levels of the animals were as potent as those of the diabetes drug glibenclamide.  Moreover, the treatment with AO500 had a slightly, but statistically significanty higher impact on the total antioxidant capacity and the same benificial effect on the morphology and function of the pancreas. Nevertheless, neither the A. officinalis extract, nor the glibenclamide treatment were able to restore the compromised insulin producton to more than ~70% of the value the non-streptozotocin-intoxicated animals.

There is much more to asparagus than it's antidiabetic effects

As impressive as these results may be, if we simply rely on the findings Hafizur, Kabir and Chishtiit present in this recent paper, we will actually miss not just half, but rather 95% of the potential health benefits the different genus and parts of asparagus have to offer.

Figure 2: A. racemosis administered at a dose of 200mg/kg per day makes male rats about as horny (and able to perform) as bi-weekly injections of testosterone (Thakur. 2009) - not that you would need that, but it's nice to know anyways.

Despite the fact that asparagus is a highly nutritious source of vitamin B6, calcium, magnesium and zinc, and a very good source of dietary fiber, protein (in at least in view of the fact that it's an almost zero calorie veggie ;-), vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin K, thiamin, riboflavin, rutin, niacin, folic acid, iron, phosphorus, potassium, copper, manganese, selenium, highly bioavailable chromium, and even small quantities omega-3 fatty acids (Morales. 2012), so that the regular incorporation of asparagus alone into your diet will supposedly be beneficial for you, some of the more intricate health effects may in fact require the extraction of and supplementation with specific phytonutrients from Asparagus officinalis, A. racemosus, A. cochinensis and its various cousins.

In order to give you an idea of what you can expect, I have compiled a comprehensive, yet by no means extensive list of benefits which have been ascribed to root, seed, and even leaf extracts of asparagus over the past decades

• anti-cancer effects: Asparagus contains saponins that have in-vitro anti-(liver-)cancer effects (Ji. 2012); 
• neuroprotective effects: Chinese asparagus contains pregnanes that sooth neuro-inflammation (Jian. 2012; compounds could be present in regular A. officinalis as well) and can protect your liver and brain from aging (Xiong. 2011); 
• antiaging effects: A. contains enzymes that help with protein digestion (Ha. 2012); 
• hypolipidemic effects: n-butanol extracts from A. officinalis exert anti-hyperlipidemic effects (Zhu. 2011); 
• antimicrobial effects: A. has antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli, Shigella dysenteriae, Shigella sonnei, Shigella flexneri, Vibrio cholerae, Salmonella typhi, Salmonella typhimurium, Pseudomonas putida, Bacillus subtilis and Staphylococcus aureus (Mandal. 2000); 
• allows for geno-typing at home ;-) A. allows you to do a personal gene analysis to find out whether you have a single nucleotide polymorphism at rs4481887, which would make it impossible for you to smell the distinct odor the urine acquires after eating asparagus (Pelchat. 2011); 
• anti-hangover effects: A. helps your liver to metabolize alcohol and can even prevent a hangover (Kim. 2009); 
• buttery taste: A. contains phytochemicals which generate the sensation of having butter in the mouth (Dawid. 2012); 
• anti-stress effects: Ethanolic extracts from Asparagus racemosus have anti-stress activity and help your adrenals take a time out (Joshi. 2012)
• carbblocking effects: Asparagus racemosus inhibits the digestion of carbohydrates and enhances insulin action (Hannan. 2011); in this context it is interesting to remark that the in-vitro essay of the the study at hand suggested that A. officinalis, or rather the specific extract the scientists used in their study "has a very little effect on delaying glucose absorption" (Hafizur. 2012)
• immune promoting effects: A. racemosus ramps up natural killer cell activity (Thakur. 2012); AR also enhances memory and prevents amnesia (Ojha. 2012), 
• profound aphrodisiac effects: A dried root extract likewise from A. racemosus more than doubled the 'desire' of male rodents within 29 days (Thakur. 2009; cf. figure 2)
• MAO and acetylcholine breakdown inhibition: A. racemosus competitively inhibits acetylcholine and monoamine metabolizing enzymes (Meena. 2011)

As this highly incomplete list goes to show you, the health benefits are numerous. Unfortunately, this does also apply to the different phytochemicals which trigger all these effects. The probability that the next best extract you may find on the shelves or virtual outlets of a supplement store is actually going to to yield the health benefits you may be looking for are therefore pretty slim.

Although parts of it are edible as well, A. racemosus, is actually better known for its multitude of beneficial health effects that range from Antibacterial activity (some) antisecretory and antiulcer activity over mood enhancing and anti-depressive properties, and immunomodulatory effects to such profane things as libido enhancement or getting rid of superfluous water before a show or photo shoot.

Bottom line: In view of the practical problems associated with spotting appropriate extracts, I guess it would be best you take the fact that a 2003 paper in scientific journal Nutrition (Pellegrini. 2003) ranked asparagus 7th among 34 fruits and vegetables with respect to its free radical scavenging abilities, as an incentive to simply incorporate asparagus into your diets more frequently.

If, on the other hand, you are dealing with any specific health condition, it would certainly make sense to look for an extract that contains the proper genus of asparagus, is made from the right parts of the plant and - if possible - is even standardized for a specific compound: If you were interested in upping your estrogen levels, you would for example have to pick a whole plant extract of A. dumosus that would at best contain a standardized amount of 20-hydroxecysterone (Kaur. 1998). If it's rather the anti-ulcer effects you are after, your 'asparagus product of choice' should be made of the roots of A. racemosus ideally standardized for its Shatavairin content (Bhatnagar. 2005)... 

And now, you tell me eating healthy was complicated and taking supplements was easy ;-)

References

• Bhatnagar M, Sisodia SS, Bhatnagar R. Antiulcer and antioxidant activity of Asparagus racemosus Willd and Withania somnifera Dunal in rats. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2005 Nov;1056:261-78.
• Dawid C, Hofmann T. Identification of Sensory-Active Phytochemicals in Asparagus (Asparagus officinalis L.). J Agric Food Chem. 2012 Nov 8.
• Ha M, Bekhit Ael-D, Carne A, Hopkins DL. Characterisation of kiwifruit and asparagus enzyme extracts, and their activities toward meat proteins. Food Chem. 2013 Jan 15;136(2):989-98. 
•  Hafizur RM, Kabir N, Chishti S. Asparagus officinalis extract controls blood glucose by improving insulin secretion and β-cell function in streptozotocin-induced type 2 diabetic rats. Br J Nutr. 2012 Nov;108(9):1586-95.
• Hannan JM, Ali L, Khaleque J, Akhter M, Flatt PR, Abdel-Wahab YH. Antihyperglycaemic activity of Asparagus racemosus roots is partly mediated by inhibition of carbohydrate digestion and absorption, and enhancement of cellular insulin action. Br J Nutr. 2011 Sep 8:1-8.
• Ji Y, Ji C, Yue L, Xu H. Saponins isolated from Asparagus induce apoptosis in human hepatoma cell line HepG2 through a mitochondrial-mediated pathway. Curr Oncol. 2012 Jul;19(Suppl 2):eS1-9.
• Jian R, Zeng KW, Li J, Li N, Jiang Y, Tu P. Anti-neuroinflammatory constituents from Asparagus cochinchinensis. Fitoterapia. 2012 Oct 24.
• Joshi T, Sah SP, Singh A. Antistress activity of ethanolic extract of Asparagus racemosus Willd roots in mice. Indian J Exp Biol. 2012 Jun;50(6):419-24. 
• Kaur H. Estrogenic activity of some herbal galactogogue constituents. Ind J Anim Nutr. 1998;5:232–4.
• Kim BY, Cui ZG, Lee SR, Kim SJ, Kang HK, Lee YK, Park DB. Effects of Asparagus officinalis extracts on liver cell toxicity and ethanol metabolism. J Food Sci. 2009 Sep;74(7):H204-8. 
• Meena J, Ojha R, Muruganandam AV, Krishnamurthy S. Asparagus racemosus competitively inhibits in vitro the acetylcholine and monoamine metabolizing enzymes. Neurosci Lett. 2011 Sep 26;503(1):6-9.
• Morales P, Ferreira IC, Carvalho AM, Sánchez-Mata MC, Cámara M, Tardío J. Fatty acids profiles of some Spanish wild vegetables. Food Sci Technol Int. 2012 Jun;18(3):281-90.
• Ojha R, Sahu AN, Muruganandam AV, Singh GK, Krishnamurthy S. Asparagus recemosus enhances memory and protects against amnesia in rodent models. Brain Cogn. 2010 Oct;74(1):1-9.
• Pelchat ML, Bykowski C, Duke FF, Reed DR. Excretion and perception of a characteristic odor in urine after asparagus ingestion: a psychophysical and genetic study. Chem Senses. 2011 Jan;36(1):9-17.
• Pellegrini N, Serafini M, Colombi B, Del Rio D, Salvatore S, Bianchi M, Brighenti F. Total antioxidant capacity of plant foods, beverages and oils consumed in Italy assessed by three different in vitro assays. J Nutr. 2003 Sep;133(9):2812-9. 
• Thakur M, Chauhan NS, Bhargava S, Dixit VK. A comparative study on aphrodisiac activity of some ayurvedic herbs in male albino rats. Arch Sex Behav. 2009 Dec;38(6):1009-15. Epub 2009 Jan 13.
• Thakur M, Connellan P, Deseo MA, Morris C, Praznik W, Loeppert R, Dixit VK. Characterization and in vitro immunomodulatory screening of fructo-oligosaccharides of Asparagus racemosus Willd. Int J Biol Macromol. 2012 Jan 1;50(1):77-81.
• Zhu X, Zhang W, Pang X, Wang J, Zhao J, Qu W. Hypolipidemic effect of n-butanol Extract from Asparagus officinalis L. in mice fed a high-fat diet. Phytother Res. 2011 Aug;25(8):1119-24.

Low Dose GABA for Diabesity Treatment? Dose Dependent Conservation of Lean Muscle Mass & Reductions in Oxid. Stress + Weight Gain + Fasting Blood Glucose & Co.

GABA tea contains comparably low amounts of GABA (180mg/100g; Wang. 2006) and still or, as the results of the study at hand suggest, rather thus helps with sleep (Cheng. 2009).

As a SuppVersity reader you know that GABA has been used successfully to revive the pancreas of diabetic animals (Soltani. 2011). As a conspiracy theorist, you believe that it's the pharma business that's paying researchers not to follow up on the results of Soltani et al. and other researchers. And as a physical culturist, you are obviously attracted by the idea that GABA supplements may help you achieve a leaner and more muscular physique... right?

I don't care if everything or anything of what I wrote before is accurate. What I do care about, though, are the results Xie et al. present in their latest paper in the Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition.

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The name of the journal gives it away: We are - again - dealing with animal data, but there is no reason to assume that the effect the researchers observed in obese mice would be completely irrelevant for human beings. The previously cited beneficial effects on the pancreas of diabetic animals have after all been confirmed in in vitro studies with human cells, already.

High amino acid levels in the blood of obese indiv. are not a result of their high protein intake, they're caused by low uptake and + high protein breakdown.

As Xie et al. point out the process of becoming obese goes hand in and with disturbances of the plasma free amino acids (pFAAs) pool. In fact, there is reason to believe that these disturbance are causally related to the increase in insulin resistance in obese patients and patients with diabetes mellitus and metabolic syndrome.

Now, contrary to what some "anti protein" gurus are going to tell you, the increased amounts of amino acids are not of dietary origin. Rather than that they are released as a consequence of the increase in protein breakdown - specifically muscle protein breakdown - in obese and diabetic individuals.

Xie et al did now speculate that the previously cited ability fo gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) to reduce high-fat diet (HFD)-induced hyperglycaemia could be brought about by the effects GABA, the chief inhibitory neurotransmitter in the mammalian central nervous system exerts on peripheral organ tissue, like skeletal muscle.

Figure 1: GABA ameliorates / reverses the HFD-induced increase in markers of ox. damage in skeletal muscle (Xie. 2014)

To elucidate, whether that's the case the scientists from the Jiangnan University randomly assigned one hundred male C57BL/6 mice to one out of the following five groups

• CONTROL: rodents on control diet
• HFD: rodents on high fat diet (high fat + high energy; HFD) 
• GL: rodents on HFD supplied with 0.2%, 
• GM: rodents on HFD supplied with 0.12%, and
• GH: rodents on HFD supplied with 0.2% GABA in drinking water 

The animals remained on the respective diets for 20 weeks.

What else can GABA do for you? 80 mg of GABA reduce blood pressure in adults with mild hypertension (Matsubara. 2002). It can speed up the recovery of an alcohol intoxicated liver (Soh. 2003). And it will trigger an acute increase in growth hormone (with no proven benefit on muscle gains; Powers. 2013). The often-cited beneficial effects on sleep, on the other hand, are far from being confirmed - results of the study at hand suggest that this may be a result of the fact that you really have to hit the sweet spot to maximize specific effects and minimize the metabolism of GABA in the liver - taking high doses may thus trigger its excretion, while taking very low doses may not be enough get the GABA across the blood brain barrier (Kakee. 2001).

During and after the trial, the scientists observed significant increases in muscular oxidative stress (see Figure 1), protein oxidation, hyperglycaemia, as well as the previously cited plasma free amino acid disorders that included an augmented level of GABA in the blood

Figure 2: Body weight, rel. muscle weight and blood glucose expressed relative to control (Xie. 2014)

Interestingly, the provision of extra GABA was still able to restore normal fasting blood glucose levels and to dose-dependently inhibit body weight gains, muscular oxidation and protein degradation.

So what's the right dose, then? If we use the data from the study at hand and the regular HED calculations, the optimal, i.e. the medium dosage would be ~80mg per day, which is significantly less than most supplements provide and does not compare to the 5g of GABA that have been used by Cavagnini et al. in 1980 to elicit a growth hormone response GABA to which owes much of its fame in the bodybuilding community.

It's all about the right dosage! While medium and low doses of GABA mitigated HFD-induced pFAA disorders, the high dose of GABA deteriorated the pFAA disorders while reducing the level of GABA in the blood and increasing the activity of succinic semialdehyde dehydrogenase which is - you guessed it - responsible for the breakdown of GABA in the liver.

As Xie et al. point out, it is would thus be important to determine the optimal dose in human beings before any recommendations with respect to its use as an anti-diabesity supplement can be made. To do so, it would also be necessary to have a better grasp of its interactions with leptin of which Kahn & Minokoshi recently wrote that they me be interacting on a receptor level in the brain (Kahn. 2013) | Comment on Facebook.

References:

• Cavagnini, F., et al. "Effect of acute and repeated administration of gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA) on growth hormone and prolactin secretion in man." Acta endocrinologica 93.2 (1980): 149-154. 
• Cheng, Tsun-Chi, and Jui-Feng Tsai. "GABA tea helps sleep." The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 15.7 (2009): 697-698.
• Kahn, Barbara B., and Yasuhiko Minokoshi. "Leptin, GABA, and Glucose Control." Cell metabolism 18.3 (2013): 304-306.
• Kakee, Atsuyuki, et al. "Efflux of a suppressive neurotransmitter, GABA, across the blood–brain barrier." Journal of neurochemistry 79.1 (2001): 110-118.
• Matsubara, Futoshi, Et Al. "Effects Of Gaba Supplementation On Blood Pressure And Safety In Adults With Mild Hypertension." Japanese Pharmacology And Therapeutics 30.11 (2002): 963-972. 
• Powers, Michael. "GABA supplementation and growth hormone response." (2012): 36-46.
• Soh, Ju-Ryoun, Tokuo T. Yamamoto, And Youn-Soo Cha. "The Effects Of Carnitine And/Or Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (Gaba) Supplementation On The Recovery Of Chronic Ethanol Administered Rats." Nutraceuticals And Food 8.2 (2003): 119-123.
• Soltani, Nepton, et al. "GABA exerts protective and regenerative effects on islet beta cells and reverses diabetes." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108.28 (2011): 11692-11697.
• Wang, Hsueh Fang, et al. "Comparison of bioactive components in GABA tea and green tea produced in Taiwan." Food chemistry 96.4 (2006): 648-653. 
• Xie, et al. "Effect of GABA on oxidative stress in the skeletal muscles and plasma free amino acids in mice fed high-fat diet." Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition (2014).

Xylitol, A Sweetener W/ Carb Blocker Effect - Up to 33% Reduced Glucose Uptake from Meals, Increased Muscular Glucose Uptake, Improved Glycemia & Pancreatic Health

Who would have thought that something that's good for your teeth could be be good for your pancreas, as well?

In a recent study scientists from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa investigated the possible mechanism(s) behind the effects of xylitol on carbohydrate digesting enzymes activity, muscle glucose uptake and intestinal glucos absorption using in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo experimental models.

Xylitol is a 5 carbon sugar alcohol with lower glycemic index (13 vs 65) and calorific value (2.4 vs 4.0 kcal/g) compared to sucrose. A number of previous studies reported that xylitol has many other potential beneficial effects such as control and prevention of obesity, diabetes and related metabolic disorders (Amo. 2011).

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In a more recent study, Islam et al. (2011) were able to show that 3 weeks supplementation of 10% dietary xylitol significantly decreased non-fasting blood glucose (NFBG) and serum fructosamine levels, increased serum insulin levels, and improved glucose tolerance ability compared to 10% sucrose in non-diabetic rats.

Figure 1: The significant improvement in glucose clearance (left) and non-fasting blood glucose (right) observed in previous rodent studies (Islam. 2011) raised the question: Is this all a mere results of a reduced GI?

Quite an intriguing result that cannot be explained solely by the reduced glycemic index - specifically in view of the fact that it was repeated in a type II diabetic rats, where it dose-dependently improved the pancreatic island cell morphology, as well (Rahman. 2014). Moreover, ...

[i]n some previous studies, it has been reported that xylitol consumption significantly reduced food intake in normal humans and diabetic rats. Slower gastric emptying and more accelerated intestinal transit were observed in normal human subjected when xylitol was supplied as single oral dose (30 g in 200 ml water) compared to the similar dose of glucose" (Chukwuma. 2015).

Based on these observations, Chukwuma & Islam conclude that xylitol might reduce NFBG levels not only by reducing food intake but also by slowing gastric emptying and accelerating nutrient transit time both in normal and diabetic conditions. Furthermore, the researcher argue that the insulinotropic effect of xylitol in diabetic condition may improve circulating glucose uptake, especially in muscle and fat cells to ameliorate hyperglycemia in diabetics.

What do previous human studies say? You already know that the rodent data is very promising, but what do the human studies say? Well, there only few - here's what we know: (1) As sweetener in a chewing gum xylitol effectively reduces caries in high risk populations (Campus. 2013); (2) xylitol acts as a GLP-1 (learn more) promoter and may thus have beneficial long-term effects on appetite control and glucose management in humans (Vanis. 2011); (3) xylitol increase satiety and acutely reduce the food intake on subsequent meals by up to 25% (Shafer. 1987; King. 2005); and xylitol  has beneficial effects on growth hormone, despite the fact that the serum glucose levels in the corresponding study were not lower than in the glucose control (Spitz. 1970). Overall, the research on the metabolic (long-term) effects is yet scarce - probably also due to the effect that the increased transit times tend to give people the runs so that long-term studies can be a pain in the ass (all puns intended) for every study participant and supplement junkie.

From the above-mentioned studies, however, it is not clear whether xylitol has any additional effects on the absorption of glucose from the different segments of the intestinal tract and on the muscle glucose uptake at the post absorption period. Accordingly the potential effects on carbohydrate digesting enzymes activity, intestinal glucose absorption and muscle glucose uptake were the main interests of the study at hand.

Figure 2: Xylitol acts as a "carb blocker" and inhibits the uptake of glucose in the ileum (left) while simultanously increasing the glucose uptake into the muscle (Chukwuma. 2015).

In a combination of in vivo and in-vitro studies, the researchers were eventually able to show that an increase of xylitol concentration in the gut inhibited the 'carbohydrate breakdown enzyme' alpha amylase (IC50 = 1364.04 mM) and alpha glucosidase (IC50 = 1127.52 mM) by up to 85% and 95% at high dosages in vitro. This explains the reduced glucose uptake in the in vivo study (see Figure 2), but it does not necessarily explain the increased muscular glucose uptake, which did not even depend on the presence of insulin (the human data reviewed in the blue box suggests that this may be related to an increase in GLP-1).

The latter effect came as a surprise, because it was not triggered by an increase in insulin production and occurred in the presence of a decreased gastric emptying and increased intestinal digesta transit rate, both in normal and diabetic rats compared to their respective controls.

We do already know that xylitol, just like many other sweeteners, will affect the composition of your gut microbes. We do not know, though that this is going to have ill health effects.

Bottom line: Overall, the data from the study at hand provide intriguing novel insights into the proven anti-diabetic effects of xylitol. Most importantly, it's the first study to confirm that xylitol effectively reduces intestinal glucose absorption via inhibiting major carbohydrate digesting enzymes and increasing the muscle glucose uptake in normal and type 2 diabetic rats.

Based on previous human studies, it is not unlikely that the very same effects occur in humans - including the slow down of gastric emptying and fastening intestinal transit, which would be associated with increased satiety and a decreased energy absorption efficacy | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• Amo, Kikuko, et al. "Effects of xylitol on metabolic parameters and visceral fat accumulation." Journal of clinical biochemistry and nutrition 49.1 (2011): 1.
• Campus, Guglielmo, et al. "Six months of high-dose xylitol in high-risk caries subjects—a 2-year randomised, clinical trial." Clinical oral investigations 17.3 (2013): 785-791.
• Chukwuma, Chika I., and Md S. Islam. "Effects of xylitol on carbohydrate digesting enzymes activity, intestinal glucose absorption and muscle glucose uptake: A multi-mode study." Food & Function (2015).
• Islam, Md Shahidul. "Effects of xylitol as a sugar substitute on diabetes-related parameters in nondiabetic rats." Journal of medicinal food 14.5 (2011): 505-511.
• King, Neil A., et al. "Evaluation of the independent and combined effects of xylitol and polydextrose consumed as a snack on hunger and energy intake over 10 d." British journal of nutrition 93.06 (2005): 911-915.
• Rahman, Md, and Md Islam. "Xylitol Improves Pancreatic Islets Morphology to Ameliorate Type 2 Diabetes in Rats: A Dose Response Study." Journal of food science 79.7 (2014): H1436-H1442.
• Spitz, I. M., et al. "The response of growth hormone to xylitol administration in man." The American journal of the medical sciences 260.4 (1970): 224-229.
• Vanis, Lora, et al. "Comparative effects of glucose and xylose on blood pressure, gastric emptying and incretin hormones in healthy older subjects." British Journal of Nutrition 105.11 (2011): 1644-1651.