Bitter Melon's unique therapeutic properties

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The mounting research into bitter melon's unique therapeutic properties appears to be another advantages of certain natural therapies over many conventional drugs. In India, for example, doctors are so confident about the anti-diabetic effect of bitter melon that it is often dispensed in hospitals to people suffering from diabetes in place of medication.

Conventional drugs are often limited to treating just one specific condition, whereas natural remedies - because of the complex array of biochemicals, vitamins and minerals they contain - are remarkably versatile and able to provide relief for a wide range of unrelated conditions. In bitter melon, for example, there are 32 active ingredients - which are thought to aid recovery from viral infections, improve digestion and stimulate poor appetite too.

Recently, the Department of Health in the Philippines has recommended bitter melon as one of the best herbal medicines for diabetic management. And multiple clinical studies have clearly established the role of bitter melon in people with diabetes.

In the USA and Asia there has been much interest in bitter melon for its use as an alternative therapy for AIDs. A protein called MAP 30 isolated from the fruit is a potent inhibitor of HIV activity. Professor Sylvia Lee-Huang and researchers at the New York University School of Medicine reported that MAP 30 protein is able to slow down HIV-1 infection in T-lymphocytes and monocytes (white blood cells) as well as replication of HIV-1 in infected cells.

And, unlike many other alternative anti-HIV treatments, the compound has been shown to be non-toxic to uninfected cells. Although research is very much in its early stages, two other proteins present in the seeds of the bitter melon, alpha- and beta-momorcharin, have also been found to inhibit the AIDs virus.

Bitter melon may prove to have general anti-viral properties too. A seed extract has been shown to deter herpes virus-1 in human cells. While anti-cancer properties are present in a crude extract of the fruit.