Sage and mulberry could help test new diabetes treatments
Medicinal Plants
The sage in your herb garden and the mulberry tree in your neighborhood have long folk reputations for treating blood sugar issues, and this review lays out the case for finally testing those claims properly.
Three plants people have used for centuries, common centaury, sage, and white mulberry, all have folk reputations for helping with diabetes and related metabolic problems. This paper reviews the science behind those traditional uses and suggests that new lab tools, specifically 3D clusters of pancreatic cells that act more like real organ tissue, could finally give researchers a better way to test whether these plants actually work and how.
Key Findings
Reviews three traditionally used medicinal plants (common centaury, sage, white mulberry) for their potential roles in managing metabolic disorders
Highlights limitations of standard flat-cell (2D) models for testing plant compounds on pancreatic function
Proposes advanced 3D pancreatic cell models as a more physiologically accurate platform for evaluating these plants' pharmacological effects
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists are reviewing how three traditional medicinal plants, common centaury, sage, and white mulberry, might help manage metabolic conditions like diabetes, and propose testing them using lab-grown 3D pancreatic tissue that behaves more like real organs than flat cell cultures.
Species Mentioned
Was this useful?
Want to tell us more? (optional)
Thanks for the note!
Something went wrong — please try again.
Too many submissions. Try again in an hour.
Gene editing removes 97% of celiac-triggering proteins from bread wheat
It could mean that people with celiac disease — roughly 1 in 100 worldwide — may one day safely eat bread made from real wheat, without sacrificing the taste...
Morus alba, known as white mulberry, common mulberry and silkworm mulberry, is a fast-growing, small to medium-sized mulberry tree which grows to 10–20 m (33–66 ft) tall. It is native to China and is widely cultivated and naturalized elsewhere. The species is widely cultivated to feed the silkwor...