Study: Rosemary Leaves Have Beneficial Effect as Anti-Diabetic Agent

For centuries, herbal medicine is famous worldwide and has been used since dawn of life. A lot of herbs and spices are claimed to have healthful components to treat several diseases. Among these herbs with healthful treatments is rosemary which is asserted by scientists for its effects on treating diabetes.

Rosemary is an herb from mint family “with fragrant, evergreen, needle-like leaves and white, pink, purple, or blue flowers”. Several scientific searches studied rosemary leaves and come with conclusion that this herbal plant can have effects similar to anti-diabetic medication prescriptions.

In this context, a new research which is published in a Journal of Research in Diabetes has gone this direction and stressed on how dried and powdered rosemary leaves can affect blood sugar and lipid profile.

Researchers of this study made experiments on 100 rats divided into “5 groups (20 rats/group) as follow: G1: Normal Control; G2: STZ-induced Diabetics; G3: STZ-induced Diabetic+ Glibenclamide; G4: STZ-induced Diabetic+ Dried rosemary leaves powder; G: Normal Control+ Dried rosemary leaves powder.”

After experiments that lasted 6 weeks and 45 days, researchers discovered different results. They noticed that there is an “improvements of body weight in STZ-induced diabetic rats treated with dried rosemary leaves powder compared with normal rats” and this may be as a result of “the increase of glucose metabolism, or may be due to its protective effect in controlling muscle wasting… and may also be due to the improvement in insulin secretion and glycemic control or may be due to the activation of  the β-cells and granulation returned to normal, like insulinogenic effect” as stated in the research.

What may stand behind this is that “rosemary stimulates insulin secretion from the remnant β-cells or regenerated β-cells and this may be through increasing betatrophin hormone (a new hormone, found in the liver that spurs the growth of insulin-secreting cells in the pancreas) secretion which increases the number of insulin-producing cells in the pancreas”.

Researchers also noticed that “treatment of STZ-induced diabetic rats with dried rosemary leaves powder significantly reduced blood glucose level to normal glycemic level, and this trigger liver to revert to its normal homeostasis during experimental (STZ-induced) diabetes.”

As stated in the study also “after treatment of diabetic group with dried rosemary leaves powder, a significant reduction (P<0.001) in fasting blood glucose (FBG) and glycosylated haemoglobin (HbA1c) level was noted in respect to untreated streptozotocin (STZ) diabetic group.”

After experiments, researchers noticed also changes in the plasma level of TG (Total triacylglycerol) and TC (Total cholesterol) in rats’ blood. Researchers explained that “after treatment with dried rosemary leaves powder, a significant increase was noticed in comparison with diabetic group. Regarding the levels of TG and TC in plasma, dried rosemary leaves powder treated diabetic group showed 45.43 & 33.89 % decrease in respect to STZ-induced diabetic control respectively. ”

Researchers of the study mentioned that most studies use the extract of rosemary, but in this research, they used “dried rosemary leaves powder which is common in normal kitchens”. The overall results of “this experiment may indicate that the dried rosemary leaves powder has a beneficial effect as an anti-diabetic agent and its complications as well as improving lipid metabolism in diabetics”.