Power of SUNY

SUNY Oswego Research Aims to Help Diabetics

A SUNY Oswego student researcher has advanced a faculty member’s years-long study in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on plants that help diabetic patients. The student, Tyler Maxon, and the faculty member, Webe Kadima’s are looking at what’s in the plants that makes them bioactive, in order to identify how plants used in traditional medicine in the DRC work to lower blood glucose levels in diabetic patients.

Kadima has made trips to Kinshasa since 2006 for research, including studying powdered extracts of plants such as laportea, musanga and paropsia. In 2009, she received permission from the DRC’s Ministry of Health to conduct preliminary trials with about 50 diabetics at a medical center on the outskirts of Kinshasa. The results have been promising. The three types of plants Kadima has studied all showed marked effects in lowering blood glucose levels in patients—though extracts from the same plants in the same amounts did not have the same effect on all.

To approach the issue of dosage, much more analytical work needs to be done. Kadima’s study has been self-funded for the last two years, and she continues to apply for grants that would assist the research. In as short a time as possible, she wants to produce packaged medications in specific doses.