Sea cucumbers might be key ingredient in stopping diabetes

Sea cucumbers are a marine delicacy loved across Asia, but the common-or-garden sea cucumber can be proving to be a key ingredient in stopping diabetes, in keeping with recent research from the University of South Australia.

Exploring the medicinal properties of sea cucumbers (Holothuria scabra), researchers found that processed dried sea cucumber with salt extracts can inhibit a compound that’s related to increased risk of diabetes, thereby reducing the likelihood of the disease.

Thus far, there isn’t a commercially available therapeutic agent to inhibit the formation of this compound, called Advanced Glycation End product (AGE).

AGEs form when proteins and/or fats mix with sugars within the bloodstream. When amassed in high levels, they increase diabetic complications, including heart disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, kidney disease, and cancer.

Lead researcher, UniSA’s Dr Permal Deo, says understanding how the bioactive compounds in sea cucumbers can inhibit AGEs could protect against these diseases.

We all know that an accumulation of AGEs is related to complications of type 2 diabetes, so strategies to forestall this may increasingly reduce the chance of developing diabetic complications.

Biologically energetic novel compounds in medicinal plants and foods are potential therapeutic agents to forestall diabetic complications.

Sea cucumbers are known to have a variety of therapeutic properties, including anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, so we desired to explore their bioactive compounds as AGE inhibitors.

We found that processed dried sea cucumber with salt extracts and collagen can significantly inhibit AGEs by lowering a variety of sugar related metabolites within the body and reducing the chance of diabetes.”

Dr Permal Deo, Lead Researcher, UniSA

In Australia, almost 1.3 million people have type 2 diabetes. Globally, about 422 million people have diabetes, with 1.5 million deaths directly attributed to the disease annually.

Almost 60 per cent of all cases of type 2 diabetes will be delayed or prevented with changes to food plan and lifestyle.

“These results provide sound evidence that sea cucumbers might be developed as a functional food product to assist battle the onset of diabetes and diabetic-complications.”