Study: Urtica promotes women with diabetes

This article is part of the 2017 Women's Health special issue. Read the full issue or download it here.

Relation

Amiri Behzadi A, Kalalian-Moghaddam H, Ahmadi AH. Effects of Urtica dioica supplementation on blood lipids, liver enzymes and nitric oxide levels in patients with type 2 diabetes: a double-blind, randomized clinical trial.Avicenna J Phytomed. 2016;6(6):686-695.

Draft

An 8-week randomized placebo-controlled intervention trial

Participant

Initially, 50 older women with type 2 diabetes mellitus were enrolled in the study; 48 completed the study, including 24 in each group. The average age was 62 years in the intervention group and 60 years in the control group. The mean body mass index (BMI) was between 23 and 24 kg/m²for the 2 groups. The median time since diagnosis was approximately 13 years.

Study medication and dosage

Patients received either 5 ml of an alcoholic extract of dried aerial partsUrtica dioica(nettle) or placebo 3 times a day after meals. The extract contained 45% ethanol and 55% water with 2.7 grams of dry matter in 1 liter of extract.

Target parameters

Fasting glucose, triglycerides, levels of high density lipoprotein (HDL), low density lipoprotein (LDL), serum glutamate-pyruvate transaminase (SGPT), glutamic acid oxaloacetate transaminase (SGOT), nitric oxide (NO) and Superoxide dismutase (SOD)

Key insights

After 8 weeks of intervention, fasting plasma glucose, triglyceride and SGPT levels significantly decreased in the treatment group. HDL, NO and SOD levels increased significantly compared to the control group.

Practice implications

This study reminds us that some of the simplest restorative herbs can still be useful in treating women with diabetes. Although we are all familiar with Urtica, I suspect many of us forget to recommend it to patients with diabetes. Urtica has a long and wide history of use in traditional medicine to treat diabetes.¹We should probably use it more often.

Published research reports consistent benefits of Urtica for type 2 diabetes in both animal models and human studies.

Urtica works in a variety of ways to lower blood sugar. Some studies suggest that it lowers blood sugar by increasing insulin secretion from the pancreas.²Apparently it does this by protecting the beta cells in the islets of Langerhans or, alternatively, by encouraging them to increase their number.³Urtica also inhibits the enzyme alpha-glucosidase and slows the digestion of carbohydrates. This is an effect that Urtica shares with several other herbs, includingTaraxacum officinale,Viscum albumandMyrtus Communis.⁴

According to Namazi et al. Urtica also increases insulin sensitivity. In an 8-week randomized controlled trial of 50 patients with type 2 diabetes, they reported significant differences in interleukin (IL)-6, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), and fasting insulin in patients given Urtica in divided doses of 100 mg/kg per day became.⁵

Urtica has a long and wide history of use in traditional medicine to treat diabetes.

In a human clinical trial published in 2013, Kianbakht et al. reported the benefit in treating people with insulin-dependent advanced type 2 diabetes with 1,500 mg per day of Urtica in divided doses for 3 months (n = 46). They reported significant improvement in fasting glucose levels, 2-hour postprandial glucose levels, and hemoglobin A_1c(HbA_1c) mirror compared to placebo.⁶

This new study by Behzadi et al. specifically looked at cholesterol levels and measurements of liver function, which they hoped would be improved by Urtica treatment. In rats, Urtica extracts reduced 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase activity and lowered LDL.⁷This benefit was not observed in this current study; rather, the opposite occurred. In this current study, Urtica was associated with a decrease in SGPT, suggesting that its use may protect the liver. The NO increases observed in this study are considered a positive improvement. Typically, NO levels decrease in type 2 diabetes, a change that is associated with complications of the disease.⁸

A major limitation of this current study is that the authors did not report changes in HbA_1cLevels in study participants after the intervention. Concentrations were measured at baseline but not at follow-up. One might suspect that this test was omitted due to the relatively short duration of the process, but it would still have been appropriate and the omission is noticeable.