A “Peachy” Remedy for Diabetes and Obesity?

“In recent years obe­sity has become a major con­cern in soci­ety due to the health prob­lems asso­ci­ated to it,” said Cisneros-Zevallos, who also is an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor at Texas A&M University. “In the U.S., sta­tis­tics show that around 30 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion is over­weight or obese, and these cases are increas­ing every year in alarm­ing numbers.”

While he acknowl­edged that lifestyle, genetic pre­dis­po­si­tion and diet play a major role in one’s ten­dency toward obe­sity, “the major con­cern about obe­sity is the asso­ci­ated dis­ease known as meta­bolic syndrome.

“Our stud­ies have shown that stone fruits—peaches, plums and nectarines—have bioac­tive com­pounds that can poten­tially fight the syn­drome,” Cisneros-Zevallos said. “Our work indi­cates that phe­no­lic com­pounds present in these fruits have anti-obesity, anti-inflammatory and anti-diabetic prop­er­ties in dif­fer­ent cell lines and may also reduce the oxi­da­tion of bad cho­les­terol LDL which is asso­ci­ated to car­dio­vas­cu­lar disease.”

What is unique to these fruits, he said, is that their mix­ture of the bioac­tive com­pounds work simul­ta­ne­ously within the dif­fer­ent com­po­nents of the disease.

“Our work shows that the four major phe­no­lic groups—anthocyanins, cloro­genic acids, quercetin deriv­a­tives and catechins—work on dif­fer­ent cells—fat cells, macrophages and vas­cu­lar endothe­lial cells,” he explained. “They mod­u­late dif­fer­ent expres­sions of genes and pro­teins depend­ing on the type of compound.

“However, at the same time, all of them are work­ing simul­ta­ne­ously in dif­fer­ent fronts against the com­po­nents of the dis­ease, includ­ing obe­sity, inflam­ma­tion, dia­betes and car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease,” he explained.

Cisneros-Zevallos said this is believed to be the first time that “bioac­tive com­pounds of a fruit have been shown to poten­tially work in dif­fer­ent fronts against a disease.”

“Each of these stone fruits con­tain sim­i­lar phe­no­lic groups but in dif­fer­ing pro­por­tions so all of them are a good source of health pro­mot­ing com­pounds and may com­ple­ment each other,” he said, adding that his team plans to con­tinue study­ing the role of each type of com­pound on the mol­e­c­u­lar mech­a­nisms and con­firm the work with mice studies.

The stud­ies on the health ben­e­fits of stone fruit are funded by the California Tree Fruit Agreement, The California Plum Board, the California Grape and Tree Fruit League and the Texas Department of Agriculture. The Cisneros-Zevallos lab team in this study included Freddy Ibanez, Paula Castillo, Paula Simons and Dr. Congmei Cao.

Source: Texas A&M Release