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Coffee Beans and Diabetes

Coffee bean extracts alleviate inflammation, insulin resistance in mouse cells

When coffee beans are processed and roasted the husk and silverskin of the bean are removed and unused, and often are left behind in fields by coffee producers. There they are sitting in the fields, unused and untested.

An improved remedy for diabetes? “A recent study, published in Food and Chemical Toxicology, shows that when fat cells of mice were treated with water-based extracts from coffee beans skins, two phenolic compounds—protocatechuic acid and gallic acid—in particular reduced fat-induced inflammation in the cells and improved glucose absorption and insulin sensitivity.


The most unlikely cures come from the most unlikely sources. And then, how many were missed when the view was toward something else? Consider one hundred thousand untested substances and one hundred thousand medical conditions. A full testing would involve ten billion studies. Too many problems, too much research, too few researchers. Even in the ten centuries ahead.


What is needed is a general theory.  Medical research desperately needs its own Isaac Newton. Theory, yes.  But even unknown is the shape of such a theory.

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