 Dripping plant extracts on cancer cells in a test tube is a far cry from testing whole foods on whole people. Another omelette study published recently, though, tried Indian gooseberries on patients with diabetes. A normal fasting blood sugar is considered under 100. Between 100 and 125 is called pre-diabetes, and over 25 you are essentially by definition diabetic. So they took people with diabetes, and they put them on a diabetes medication, like gliburide, sold as diabetha, or micronase. It brings down their blood sugars. Then researchers compared that leading diabetes drug to just 3 quarters of a teaspoon a day of dried powdered amla. That's less than two berries a day worth. They just gave them a tiny bit of this fruit, and it worked even better than the leading drug. So they tried half a teaspoon a day of gooseberry powder, a quarter teaspoon a day. That's not even one berry. Still brought their sugars down into the normal range. Here are the potential side effects of the drug, gliburide. Most commonly, you know, weight gain, feeling like you're going to throw up, or rarely your skin starts to fall off or your liver fails or it poisons your bone marrow. Side effects of gooseberries? I don't know, they taste kind of sour. Amla has been used safely for centuries, but these researchers did actually find three dramatic side effects. In addition to bringing their blood sugars down, amla lowered their bad cholesterol, straight from the danger zone into the happy zone. One gooseberry a day cut their bad cholesterol in half in three weeks, boosted their good cholesterol, and cut their triglycerides in half. Yeah, but how expensive is this amla stuff? How expensive are Indian gooseberries? Most of the diabetes drugs are generic now. You could get a three-month supply of the drugs for only like 50 bucks. So I biked over to an Indian spice store. I actually have my neighborhood to see if they had amla, Indian gooseberries. I was afraid they'd be like, What? Instead they were like, do you want frozen, dried, sweetened, salted, pickled, packed in syrup, packed in nitrogen? I bought all these in a tiny little store in a strip mall, a couple blocks away from where I live. You can tell I like the sweet the best. And yes, they had powdered too. A three-month supply? $3. Am I recommending people treat their diabetes with gooseberry powder? No. I recommend curing your diabetes with a plant-based diet. I mean, why treat anything when you can get it the root cause and reverse it in the first place?