Fenugreek

Healing essence of fenugreek

Cardioprotective
Anti-cancer
Anti-diabetic
Anti-oxidant
Performance enhancer
(Trigonella foenum graecum)

In traditional medicine, it has been used to treat a number of conditions including diabetes, sore throats, and in poultices used to treat sores and abscesses.

Recent investigations into the medicinal properties of this spice suggest it is important not only as a preventive for chronic diseases such as diabetes, but also for enhancing normal physiological processes, especially with respect to athletic performance.

Medicinal Properties

Cardiovascular Disease and Blood Lipids

Blood thinner
Another one of its properties is the reduction of platelet aggregation which, in turn, dramatically reduces the risk of abnormal blood clotting associated with heart attacks and strokes.

Like most spices, it also contains many important antioxidants and has the added benefit of protecting other dietary and internally produced antioxidants from free-radical damage. This has important cardioprotective benefits, as well as helping to fortify the body against a range of other chronic conditions.

Diabetes

Insulin resistance
Working in a similar way to the common antidiabetic drug glibenclamide, it lowers cellular insulin resistance and controls blood glucose homeostasis. It has been shown to lower blood glucose levels of Type II diabetes by as much as 46 percent.

Increase in antioxidants
It also increases the levels of several important antioxidants and reduces the damaging oxidation of lipids associated with diabetes. As an added bonus, the seeds are a very rich in a type of dietary fibre that modulates post-prandial blood glucose levels by delaying the absorption of sugar in the intestines.

Cataracts
It is also effective against diabetes-related cataracts which occur commonly in diabetics. The enzymes that control glucose uptake into the lens of the eye do not function normally in diabetics and, as a result, glucose and its metabolites, fructose and sorbitol, accumulate in the lens tissues.

The lenses of diabetic patients are also prone to damage by enzymes that would normally protect against destructive free radicals, and a combination of these factors leads to the gradual opacification of the lens known as a cataract.

It has been shown to partially reverse both the metabolic changes in the lens and to reduce the density of the cataract, it is likely to be even more effective as a preventive agent against cataract formation in diabetics.

Athletic Endurance

In order to achieve this, muscle carbohydrate stores, in the form of glycogen, must be continuously replenished. In an event lasting more than one-and-a-half hours, glycogen stores become depleted, and for the remainder of the event the athlete has to rely on external sources of energy, such as high carbohydrate drinks, which are inferior to glycogen as an energy source.

Post-event re-synthesis of glycogen is also very important, and the two hours immediately following prolonged exercise is the crucial time for this process to occur.

Glycogen replenishment
Fenugreek has been shown to have a strong effect on glycogen replenishment; increasing post-event re-synthesis by over 60 percent in some endurance athletes. While its effects on glycogen re-synthesis during an event have yet to be tested, it is likely to exhibit a similarly beneficial effect during, as well as after, exercise.

Natural Hormones in Fenugreek

Phytoestrogens are also thought to help protect against certain types of cancer, and fenugreek may well be proven to have anti-tumourigenic effects should this property be investigated in the future.

Nutrient Content

Spice supplement

Important phytonutrients

Others: Diosgenin, fenugreekine, trigonelline