The fibrous fruits or "pods" of Okra are not only tasty but highly nutritious. It is cultivated in tropical and warm temperature conditions throughout the world. Okra water has been in use as a remedy for diabetes for centuries.
Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) also known as Lady Finger, Gumbo, Bamia and many other names in different parts of the world belongs to Malvaceae family of flowery plants. Okra is a very low in calories and a rich source of dietary fiber, vitamins and minerals.
Okra's health benefits include diabetes and cholesterol control and weight reduction. It contains a healthy amount of Vitamin A, C and K in addition to Vitamin B-6. Okra is also a rich source of antioxidants beta-carotene, xanthin and lutein.
A study published in the National Institute of Health website suggests that Okra reduces postprandial serum glucose in rats.It was found that the viscous soluble dietary fiber of Okra significantly reduces the intestinal absorption of glucose in fasting rats indicating controlling diabetes.
How to Use Okra for Diabetes Control
Okra is a tasty vegetable. Adding okra to your daily diet can be beneficial to control diabetes. Okra seed extracts as compared to the Okra peel extract in one of the research studies has been found more beneficial, but both are capable to reduce blood sugar levels.
So you can use okra in any form to control your blood sugar levels. Eat it raw, cook as vegetable or pickle it in vinegar. However, the most traditional and perhaps the best method to deal with diabetes is to drink okra water empty stomach first thing in the morning.
How to Prepare Okra water?
Take 4 mature tender okra pods of the 6 inches size. Okra pods size ranges from 3-7 inches per pod. If you have the small pod size variety of okra then take 5-6 pods.
- do this preparation in the late evening
- clean the Okra pods with water to remove the pesticides and other dirt if any
- cut ends of selected Okra pods
- make a vertical cut to check if there are no worms in the okra pods (don't split the split the pod)
- keep the pods fully immersed in a glass of water.
- cover the glass top
- leave it there overnight
- remove the pods in the morning
- squeeze the juice of pods in the same water
- drink it empty stomach
It will take weeks and months of consuming okra before you get back the normal sugar levels and feel relief from diabetes. Many people have tried it successfully to get rid of their diabetes.
Diabetes is a very dangerous condition which slowly impacts all body organs ranging from your eyes, kidneys, heart and skin to even your brain. therefore it is important to treat diabetes early.
In all the research studies use of okra has been found to interfere with the working of metformin and other diabetes drugs, therefore it is important to keep your doctor in the loop if you are already taking diabetes drugs and want to move to okra therapy.
It is an irony that most diabetes drugs work for 6 months or so to reduce the blood sugar levels of diabetic patients, then the doses must be increased to continue to deal with diabetes. This is counterproductive. the patient becomes depended on the higher doses of diabetes drugs which have other side effects.
Therefore, natural ways to control diabetes is much better. if you are in pre-diabetic conditions or in other words you have borderline diabetes, then you must do everything possible to not begin the diabetes medicine but try alternate methods of diet control, exercise and okra water therapy.