Research published in the American Journal of Medicine found that treating people with a blend of cold-pressed sesame oil and rice bran oil significantly normalizes blood glucose levels. Testing involved 400 men and women for eight weeks, including 300 that had been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, by replacing cooking oils in their diet with a blend of sesame and rice bran oil.

The researchers, from Japan’s Fukuoka University and India’s Council of Medical Research, divided the patients into four groups. For two months, 100 healthy people and 100 Type 2 diabetes patients replaced their cooking oils with the sesame/rice bran blend, another 100 Type 2 diabetes patients were treated with five milligrams per day of the diabetes drug glibenclamide (glynase in the U.S.) and the remaining 100 Type 2 diabetes patients were treated with a combination of the same dosage of glibenclamide, along with consuming the sesame/rice bran oil blend over the two-month period.

After four weeks and eight weeks, the researchers found the diabetes patients that consumed the oil blend had significant reductions in fasting and post-meal blood glucose levels. They also had lower levels of glycated hemoglobin, triglycerides, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (“bad” cholesterol) and improved high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (“good” cholesterol). Those treated with the diabetes drug without consuming the oil blend showed none of the same improvements.

This article appears in the October 2016 issue of Natural Awakenings.