An estimated 19 million people are affected by diabetes in the EU, equal to four per cent of the total population. This figure is projected to increase to 26 million by 2030.
Diabetes sufferers have a deficiency or resistance to insulin, produced in the pancreas, which causes their blood sugar levels to rise.
Insulin controls blood levels of glucose, the body's main energy source. In those with diabetes, insulin deficiency or insulin resistance causes blood sugar concentrations to rise.
A research team from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in the US applied the extract of Gardenia jasminoides Ellis to pancreas cells taken from mice.
They observed that cells from normal mice secreted insulin, whereas cells from mice lacking an uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2), which prevents insulin being produced, did not.
This led them to suggest that the extract blocks the activity of UCP2, and through chemical analyses the active compound responsible for this activity was identified as genipin.
The study is published in Cell Metabolism (June 7 2006).
Although a good deal more research would need to be conducted, the scientists were positive that their findings may mean the extract could be used in the development of new diabetes drugs to target the underlying causes of diabetes.
Moreover, they said the findings may also boost use of the extract itself, particularly in its native eastern Asia.