Kanebo testing chestnut polyphenol for glucose lowering
of extracting polyphenols from chestnut skin, which could then be
used to regulate blood sugar levels.
In recent mice experiments, the company has shown that a chestnut proanthocyanidin, the same type of polyphenol as that found in red grape seeds, suppresses glucose levels.
It presented the results at the Kansai region meeting of the Japan Society for Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Agrochemistry at the end of September.
US researchers have previously reported that a proanthocyanidin found in cinnamon can affect insulin signalling in fat cells.
The Japanese company is following a growing trend to identify natural compounds that could help improve blood sugar control and therefore stem the rising incidence of diabetes.
Kanebo has also described an extraction process, using heat and ethanol, that successfully isolates the beneficial chestnut compound.
