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Diabetes
Plant Therapy for Diabetes Patients
Two scientists have different ideas on how to attack diabetes, which affects almost 24 million Americans. But one thing they have in common is that they have used fruits and veggies to develop medications and food additives to combat it.
Fruitful Approach
 Researchers Joe Ahrens and Daryl Thompson created a compound derived from fruits. They are hoping food companies will add Emulin to their products. |
A small Winter Haven startup company, ATM Metabolics, has come up with a tropical fruit-based compound designed to control blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes, also called adult-onset diabetes. Type 2 accounts for 90% to 95% of all cases of diabetes diagnosed.
Emulin is derived from citrus, blackberries, blueberries and muscadine grapes, particularly the parts near the peel. “We feel that it will treat and reverse diabetes as well as prevent people from becoming diabetics,” says Joe Ahrens, ATM Metabolics’ director of science and a former director of scientific research for the Florida Department of Citrus.
Ahrens and his partner, Daryl Thompson, came up with the product while working on citrus-based weight-management products. “It was an accident,” says Thompson, who previously developed and marketed a grapefruit-based capsule called CitraSens.
Emulin acts like insulin when ingested, says Thompson, counteracting the glycemic impact of high-sugar foods. The two plan to market it as a food additive rather than a drug, which would require extensive human clinical trials. They’re working to persuade a food manufacturer, particularly a soft drink company, to add Emulin to its products. “I would see this happening easily within two years,” says Thompson.
