Charantia (Ampalaya)

Not some exotic plant, but the unassuming ampalaya-all wrinkly and bitter-is perhaps the best thing to happen to the herbal industry.

Studies on its numerous health benefits have stacked up long ago, yet this vegetable has rekindled interests mainly on the strength of its ability to control what type-2 diabetics have trouble with, blood sugar content. And with 140 million people suffering from the disease worldwide, and the rate is set to double in the next 25 years, the market is hard to ignore. But even as herbal companies start concocting their commercial versions of the ampalaya, they better heed a lesson: doctors hold the key to tapping the market’s full potential. After all, where doctors give their nod, the patients-the millions of diabetics-are likely just behind.

Clearly, the challenge is to shed the doctors’ skepticism on herbal products, and the burden rests on the industry.

The ampalaya’s anti-diabetes potency may well provide the icebreaker to draw the doctors’ attention. While ampalaya as a health remedy is an old knowledge—earlier generations have used it to cure a variety of illnesses, such as anemia, hypertension, constipation and viral infection-focusing on its blood-sugar lowering properties, a fact medical science recognizes, may help doctors turn a listening ear.

One company, Herbcare Corporation, has taken the initiative to communicate with the doctors. The company manufactures Charantia, an ampalaya food supplement that dominates its category today, and claims that its product helps lower the blood sugar level. But self-assurance, the company knows, is not enough.

A clinical trial published in the prestigious Philippine Journal of Internal Medicine and conducted by independent diabetologists has shown that patients taking Charantia, along with their prescribed medicine, proper diet and exercise, had better blood sugar control than those who did not take the product.

Although small in its scope (only 27 subjects were involved), the study has helped open the line between the company and doctors, specifically the public health officers who serve, the majority of the poor in the country. Often, these patients have little access to expensive medicines-that doctors who consult with these people require more ingenuity and sympathy.

Many of the public doctors have tried Charantia on their patients and reported that the product, when included in a regimen of prescribed medication, proper diet and exercise, actually helped their patients manage their blood sugar better.

Testimonials are also rife of doctors reducing the dosage of costly medicines after their patients achieved a better blood sugar level with the help of Charantia, thus, giving the patients some reprieve from costly healthcare.

Armed with the positive feedback, notwithstanding the clinical evidence, Charantia was given the unprecedented recognition when the Association of Municipal Health Officers-over 1,500 doctors who run the country’s network of municipal health centers-officially endorsed it as a supplement to help patients control their blood sugar better.