What is the Flower That Helps Blood Sugar?
Flowers aren’t typically what you’d think of first when trying to lower your blood sugar, however, there are some exceptions.
Flowers that lower blood sugar are mostly the ones that can be eaten or drank as tea. Consuming the active compounds of these flowers may help contribute to healthy blood sugar levels.
Not all flowering plants contain their beneficial compounds in their flowers, though. Some of them contain these blood-sugar-regulating chemicals in stem or roots. Here are some examples:
- Chamomile (flower)
- Ginseng (root)
- Turmeric (root)
- Ginger (root)
As you can see, all of these except for chamomile contain their beneficial components in roots, not the flowers.
Apart from these, there are also flowers that may affect your blood sugar with their scent alone. In other words, some flowers might lower your blood sugar just from you inhaling their scent—more on this in a minute.
For now, let’s start with the one most of us are familiar with.
Chamomile
Chamomile is a common plant with unique medical properties. It’s been used for various health treatments for centuries, including diabetes.
The active ingredients in chamomile are flavonoids and polyphenols. Specifically, there is one compound called apigenin.
Apigenin has antioxidant effects, helping your cells to function better and lower blood sugar levels. It also has positive effects on insulin. [1]
This makes chamomile a potential aid for diabetics, but more human research needs to be done before it can be recommended as such. The study we linked above was performed on mice.
Lavender
Lavender is a natural way of supporting healthy blood sugar levels. It is a popular ingredient in many different types of cosmetics and perfumes, among others.
Bioactivities of lavender are thought to have an anti-inflammatory effect on the body. Inflammation is directly linked to obesity and blood sugar dysregulation, so reducing excess inflammatory processes in the body through flowers like lavender is worth considering. [2]
However, just inhaling the scent of lavender is shown to have a calming effect on the body, which has a knock-on benefit on our blood sugar levels, because cortisol, the stress hormone is directly linked to your metabolism and weight loss.
Rose
Rose is the best known flower when it comes to its therapeutic properties. It helps you relax, it can calm the mind, and it can even help to reduce blood pressure.
When we inhale the scent of a rose, our brains release serotonin and dopamine, which are hormones that don’t just make you feel good, but also play a role in appetite regulation.
Gardenia
Gardenia is a small flowering shrub that has been used for centuries in traditional Chinese medicine.
It is also known as the “Queen of Flowers” and the “Chinese Jasmine”.
Flowers of Gardenia have been found to benefit blood sugar levels. Inhaling the scent helps regulate the production of insulin and glucose in the body. Gardenia is also suggested to have anxiolytic effects, which again has a positive indirect effect on body weight control. [3]
Ginseng
Ginseng (particularly Siberian Ginseng) is a flowering plant known for growing in harsh arctic climates. However, unlike rose and gardenia, its active compounds that benefit blood sugar aren’t in its flowers, but in the root.
It contains ginsenosides, which are natural chemical compounds with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Ginseng is believed to help blood sugar because it can stimulate the pancreas to produce more insulin.
The knock-on benefit is that ginseng is also one of the flowering plants that aid weight loss.
References
- Wu L, Guo T, Deng R, Liu L, Yu Y. Apigenin Ameliorates Insulin Resistance and Lipid Accumulation by Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress and SREBP-1c/SREBP-2 Pathway in Palmitate-Induced HepG2 Cells and High-Fat Diet-Fed Mice. J Pharmacol Exp Ther. 2021 Apr;377(1):146-156. doi: 10.1124/jpet.120.000162. Epub 2021 Jan 28. PMID: 33509902.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33509902/#:~:text=Diet%2DFed%20Mice-,Apigenin%20Ameliorates%20Insulin%20Resistance%20and%20Lipid%20Accumulation%20by%20Endoplasmic%20Reticulum,High%2DFat%20Diet%2DFed%20Mice - Shoelson SE, Lee J, Goldfine AB. Inflammation and insulin resistance. J Clin Invest. 2006 Jul;116(7):1793-801. doi: 10.1172/JCI29069. Erratum in: J Clin Invest. 2006 Aug;116(8):2308. PMID: 16823477; PMCID: PMC1483173.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1483173/ - Zhang N, Luo M, He L, Yao L. Chemical Composition of Essential Oil from Flower of ‘Shanzhizi’ (Gardenia jasminoides Ellis) and Involvement of Serotonergic System in Its Anxiolytic Effect. Molecules. 2020 Oct 14;25(20):4702. doi: 10.3390/molecules25204702. PMID: 33066512; PMCID: PMC7587363.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33066512/
