A couple months ago I made a post about a helpful diabetic herb that goes by many names- the Asian Pumpkin, the Shark Fin Melon, chilacayote, and its proper name- Cucurbita Ficifolia. It was actually misrepresented in the press as simply a pumpkin, which was somewhat astounding. I still wonder if Diabetics are eating regular orange pumpkins thinking that they are recieving health benefits. The original study is linked to in my first post about this Shark Fin Melon.

Someone came along and commented on my post with a couple of excellent sources for this hard to find vegetable in America. First off, you can find the seeds on J Hudson’s Website. It is under the name “Chilacayote”. The short description calls it by its normal name and you can actually order the seeds and attempt to grow them yourself. PLEASE EMAIL me if you decide to do this, I would love to do a writeup on how to grow them and how the entire process went.

A little more digging helped me find D-chiro-Inositol (DCI). DCI is related to Cucurbita Ficifolia in this study, by the same authors as the first: D-chiro-Inositol found in Cucurbita ficifolia (Cucurbitaceae) fruit extracts plays the hypoglycaemic role in streptozocin-diabetic rats. It appears that the D-chiro-Inositol might be the main ingredient of the Shark Fin Melon. If that is so, then what we would really want to suppliment is with the DCI.

Someone gave me a source for it! Here it is- Chiral Balance.

Please note that I have not yet tried this supplement and I have absolutely no idea if it is helpful or not. I would love someone’s input if they tried it. The company appears to promote the product for different uses.

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Posted on October 16, 2007 | No Comments | Filed under : Cucurbita Ficifolia, Herb Research