Australian and Chinese scientists will join forces for a major research program aimed at isolating active ingredients in traditional herbal preparations that help fight obesity and diabetes, it was announced Tuesday.
Sydney's Garvan Institute said it would work with the Shanghai Institute for Biological Sciences to put traditional Chinese diabetes treatments under the microscope.
Garvan's deputy director for diabetes and obesity research, Greg Cooney, said he believed it was the first time two research institutes had combined to subject Chinese remedies to Western-style scientific scrutiny.
"There's no doubt that some of these medicines are effective in treating diabetes and obesity; we just don't know how," he said. "They've been used in China for centuries and it's been documented that they do work.
"But there's variability in their effectiveness -- a herb grown in one place might not work as well as the same herb grown elsewhere.
"What we're trying to do is get a handle on the active ingredients as a step toward standardizing the treatments and, hopefully, developing new drugs."
Cooney admitted there was scepticism among Western scientists toward Chinese herbal remedies, but said it was important for researchers to keep their minds open.
"It's only 200 years ago that if you were presented with diabetes in the West you would have been bled with leeches," he said.
"No one can assume they have all the right answers. Many common drugs available today are based on Western traditional remedies dating back centuries," he said.
Cooney said the Garvan Institute, one of Australia's top research centers, would eventually examine traditional Chinese treatments for cancer and neurological conditions, including Alzheimer's disease.
But the initial focus will be on diabetes, with scientists running a barrage of tests on compounds containing exotic ingredients such as "milk vetch root" and "dwarf lily turf tuber."
Diabetes has long been a problem in the West and is increasingly prevalent in developing countries as populations grow older and adopt sedentary lifestyles.
Garvan Institute spokeswoman Suzie Freebury said China was "the epicenter of a global diabetes crisis," accounting for about 50 million of the world's estimated 171 million diabetes patients.
Cooney said the Australian and Chinese scientists hit upon the idea of a joint research program when members of the Garvan Institute visited Shanghai last year.
"We've had individuals come up to us with an herb in the past and say `this is what my grandmother always used for diabetes and it really works,' but we've never followed on and researched a single plant," he said.
"In Shanghai, they've built up a tremendous library containing samples of traditional treatments and we thought we could combine their resources and our methodology to conduct a rigorous study."
Diabetes is caused by a problem with insulin, a hormone that stimulates the body's cells into absorbing the energy source glucose from the blood.
Its symptoms can include blindness, a vulnerability to infections that lead to amputation, nerve damage, heart problems and kidney disease.
Type one diabetes develops in early childhood, while type two usually occurs later in life and has been called the "lifestyle disease" because of its links to obesity.
One of the major metabolic changes associated with Type two diabetes and obesity is insulin resistance -- impaired action of insulin in muscle, fat and liver tissue.
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