In 2018, our group published a letter in The Lancet detailing a case in which a patient had taken a herbal preparation to treat her diabetes [1]. In essence, our laboratory was approached by the treating physician after the patient, a 58 year old lady of south Asian origin with a 30 year history of type 2 diabetes said that, during the previous two years, she had replaced some of her prescribed anti-diabetic medication with a herbal remedy purchased in India.

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) remains undiagnosed for many years in large number of persons living in developing countries. The cost of diagnostic tests and the invasive procedures involved in conventional screening methods remain a major setback to timely testing

The question of whether or not correction of vitamin D deficiency might reduce the risks of later type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) has been under debate for many decades. The necessity of vitamin D for normal insulin secretion was first identified experimentally in the 1980s.

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a metabolic disease defined by hyperglycemia. If not treated, chronic and even short periods (i.e. weeks) of undesirable hyperglycemia increases the risk for developing diabetic microvascular complications such as retinopathy, neuropathy, nephropathy, foot ulcers and amputations, and macrovascular complications such as cardiovascular disease including stroke

The neuropeptide Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide (CGRP) is a 37-amino acid peptide, with a wide-range of biological activities including vasodilation, neurogenic inflammation, immune function and hypertension. In addition to these various roles, it has also been heavily implicated in metabolic disease, with roles in feeding, energy dissipation processes and pancreatic β-cell insulin secretion.